Leading Romanian cable TV operator Astral Telecom has selected a Scientific-Atlanta transport network system to help enhance the services offered to its subscribers while reducing operating costs.

Scientific-Atlanta will provide Astral with its reverse CWDM (Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing) system, the ROSA Network Management System (NMS), including the Phoenix HMTS (Hybrid Fiber/Coax Monitoring Termination System), and a Vision 1000 Headend platform.

Astral currently provides cable TV, Internet and voice telephony services to more than 52 cities and has more than 700,000 subscribers. Scientific-Atlanta's reverse CWDM system will help Astral to maximise the use of the existing fiber infrastructure to provide its users with an enhanced array of services, without the need to deploy more fiber.

The Rosa NMS will allow Astral to monitor its HFC (Hybrid Fiber/Coax) network to ensure that high service levels are maintained at all times. The ROSA NMS will pinpoint the precise location of any failure in the network, sound an alarm and enable service personnel to remedy any problem quickly and decrease network downtime. Initially Astral will monitor the cities of Bucharest and Poina, before using it to monitor cities nationwide.

In 2003, Astral Telecom used Scientific-Atlanta's products and systems to upgrade its Romanian CATV network to deliver two-way communication services. The upgrade enabled the cable operator to improve efficiency by enabling each node to serve more subscribers. Scientific- Atlanta's range of services and products for CATV operators coupled with its excellent customer service has enabled the Astral Telecom to develop a flexible network designed to meet the needs of both content providers and subscribers.

Astral Telecom CEO Aurel Costea says, "As one of the fastest growing cable TV operators in the country we want to ensure that the equipment we install helps us maintain customer satisfaction and lowers operational costs. Scientific-Atlanta's technology helps us to achieve both of these."

"Scientific-Atlanta's technology will enable us to monitor our entire network to ensure that our customers continue to enjoy maximum service availability with minimum disruption. With the reverse CWDM system in place, we will be able to meet our objectives - increase data transmission speed for the Internet and maintain our market leading position with subscribers without the need to re-fiber the network," he added.

Scientific-Atlanta Europe EMEA vice president and managing director George Stromeyer says, "The Romanian telecommunications market is growing rapidly and our technology will help Astral Telecoms retain its position as an industry leader. Scientific-Atlanta's products are designed with both the operator and their consumers in mind and our network management solutions provide operators with an end-to-end monitoring tool. In the current industry conditions, operators need technology which both increases revenues and offers enhanced services while lowering the cost per user. We believe Scientific-Atlanta technology can help Astral take a significant step towards achieving this."