Although Cox Communications Inc. and StarHub Pte. Ltd. remain flagship customers for Vyyo Inc. (Nasdaq: VYYO - message board), the vendor has passed important testing milestones with two other MSOs -- Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) and Charter Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: CHTR - message board).

    Vyyo CEO Wayne Davis, the former chief technology officer at Charter, revealed those details Monday morning during the company's second-quarter conference call. (See Vyyo Q2 Revenues Dip, Losses Narrow .)

    Comcast, he said, has conducted lab trials of Vyyo's UltraBand system, an overlay that boosts cable bandwidth to 3 GHz. Charter, meanwhile, has conducted tests of UltraBand, as well as Vyyo's T1-over-HFC product for commercial cable services.

    Vyyo did not indicate when those tests might turn into field tests or deployments, but will only bring in those [vendors] that are relevant to their strategies."

    Davis also confirmed Vyyo has purchase orders in for 3 GHz "passives" from Cox for the vendor indicated that lab tests are important first steps with those MSOs and mark a "big event" for the Norcross, Ga., company.

    "Cable operators don't have the luxury of wasting time in the lab," said Davis. "They systems passing a total of 5.5 million homes combined. Vyyo is also starting to receive requests for "node designs," which represent a step toward deployment of the full UltraBand system, according to Davis. The full overlay also requires active components.

    Ultra Band aims to double a cable operator's downstream capacity and quadruple upstream bandwidth, but Davis said Vyyo's overlay could help MSOs in the nearer-term by building room to accommodate an expanding menu of high-definition television (HDTV) channels, and to meet HD competition being spurred by DirecTV Group Inc. (NYSE: DTV - message board).