A new open industrial standard known as DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Systems Interface Specifications) was established by CableLabs, a body set up by the US cable industry. This standard applies to cable modems as well as backend network equipment. Prior to DOCSIS, there was no one common standard adopted by cable modem manufacturers. The arrival of the open cable standard DOCSIS/MCNS paved the way for more competing models of cable modems to be readily available. DOCSIS 1.1 adds key enhancements to the original standard, such as improved quality of service and hardware-based packet-fragmentation capabilities, to support IP telephony and other constant-bit-rate services. In short, DOCSIS 1.1 provides the bandwidth and latency guarantees required to offer toll-quality voice and business-class data services.