Jupiter Communications (J:Com), which is Japan’s largest cable operator, has signed on as the first customer for Netgear’s new DOCSIS 3.0 wireless gateway.

J:Com, which is operated by Liberty Global, has had a 160 Mbps data service deployed for over a year, and it will use Netgear’s DOCSIS 3.0 Wireless-N Cable Gateway (CG3200D) for the bonded wideband service.

“We're very pleased with the cooperation between Netgear and J:Com in this first deployment of an advanced DOCSIS 3.0 wireless gateway, as J:Com has some of the highest performance, quality and time-to-market expectations in the business," said David James, director of product management for Netgear . "We displayed the North American version at the CableLabs Summer Conference in August, where we showcased Netgear’s product innovation in DOCSIS, PacketCable and companion technologies for the cable market."

In addition to DOCSIS 3.0, the CG3200D, which is part of Netgear’s new CG3000 series, features support for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and is also backwards compatible with DOCSIS 2.0 and DOCSIS 1.1. It supports remote management and provisioning, simple plug-in installation and post-installation manageability with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

In addition, it offers 802.11n wireless and Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports so users can take advantage of their high-speed WAN and LAN connections.

In a fiercely competitive data market, the 160 Mbps service has been a differentiator for J:Com against telcos. In March, J:Com said it had 1.5 million high-speed data customers, which was a 21.1 percent year-over-year net increase.