Astral Telecom carries out USD1 million voice-over-cable upgrade

Romanian cableco Astral Telecom has completed an upgrade to its cable-based IP network to provide enhanced triple-play voice, video and broadband data services. The USD1 million project was carried out by Cisco Systems, which implemented a softswitch system across Astral’s national network, allowing it to better manage network resources, support high customer demand and deliver improved quality voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) services. Since launching cable VoIP telephony in 2003, Astral has expanded the service to reach over 100 major cities and towns and reports that it is signing up ‘hundreds’ of new subscribers each week.