New York-based Cablevision announced this week that it has deployed BigBand's Switched Broadcast technology to "significantly" increase the number of channels it offers to its customers.

In what it claims is the successful completion of the "largest-ever switched broadcast deployment in a single cable system," BigBand says the new technology will allow Cablevision to deploy nine new in-language programming services, featuring dozens of international channels from around the world.

BigBand's switched broadcast technology is designed to enhance the efficiency of bandwidth and network resources that cable operators use to deliver digital programming. With switched broadcast, television programs are dynamically directed to those areas in which subscribers are actively requesting them, so that only those programs being watched consume bandwidth in any given area.

"With BigBand's Switched Broadcast, we can significantly increase the number of channels we can provide to customers over our existing hybrid fiber coaxial cable network," said Patricia Gottesman, Cablevision's executive vice president of product management and marketing. "We are using BigBand Networks' groundbreaking technology today to deliver nine distinct, in-language international programming options across our entire service area, and we see this as an important tool in our efforts to deliver new choices for our diverse and growing customer base."