Time Warner Cable Deploys BigBand Networks' Broadband Multimedia-Service Router for Digital Broadcast Grooming

Business Wire, Nov 26, 2001

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 26, 2001

First Purchases of Next-Generation Router Following Corporate

Approval Are in Shreveport, LA and San Antonio, TX Divisions

BigBand Networks, Inc. today announced that digital broadcast grooming on its Broadband Multimedia-Service Router (BMR(TM)) has been selected by Time Warner Cable, an AOL Time Warner company. The BMR has been successfully tested and qualified for Time Warner Cable's network environments, with first BMR deployments in the Shreveport, La. and San Antonio divisions. These purchases follow the BMR's rigorous lab evaluation and an extensive live field test on Time Warner Cable's Milwaukee division, involving programs delivered to over 60,000 subscribers.

"BigBand Networks' BMR provides next-generation flexibility in a robust, reliable architecture and is capable of doing much more than digital video grooming," said Louis Williamson, senior director, Traffic Engineering of Time Warner Cable. "As a result of our field testing, Time Warner Cable has approved the BMR for deployment in the field."

"Time Warner Cable is a global industry leader," said Amir Bassan-Eskenazi, president and CEO of BigBand Networks. "Completing its trials and being selected for deployments validates the BMR as a next-generation router with advanced digital video functionality. The BMR stands out in digital broadcast grooming for its density, stability, high definition television support, and ease-of-use, while providing a software upgrade path to other revenue-generating digital cable services."

The BMR is being deployed in Time Warner Cable's Shreveport and San Antonio divisions that together have over 400,000 total subscribers, including over 150,000 digital subscribers. The BMRs will be used for both standard definition television and high definition television programs, sourced from a variety of satellite and off-air feeds, and re-multiplexed with BigBand Networks' RateShaping(TM) functionality to enhance network efficiency.

The BMR provides cable system operators with economic advantages over first-generation grooming solutions by combining high-density MPEG statistical re-multiplexing, RateShaping, and MPEG switching in a purpose-built router. The space-efficient BMR100(TM) and high-capacity BMR1200(TM) can be deployed, in either new headend builds or expansions to existing digital headends, to cost-effectively support the full range of cable system architectures, using standard video and data interfaces, such as DVB-ASI, Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet.

The BMR digital broadcast grooming solution is an industry leader in occupying less than a quarter the rack space of legacy systems; internally incorporating switching functionality; assuring reliability through redundancy; and providing ease-of-use through the drag-and-drop Broadcast Control Manager (BCM) GUI application. BigBand Networks extends these advantages to its customers, while enabling easy addition of other revenue-generating advanced services based on the modular NativeMedia(TM) Operating System design inside of the BMR.

About BigBand Networks

BigBand Networks, Inc. designs, manufactures, sells and supports Broadband Multimedia-Service Routers (BMR). The BMR is a new class of router built on the company's NativeMedia technology that uniquely routes and integrates video, audio and data in their native formats and enables service providers to deliver broadcast-quality content and advanced, interactive services to the mass market. The company is funded by Redpoint Ventures, Pilot House Ventures, Cedar Fund and Evergreen Investments and is based in Fremont. www.bigbandnet.com.

About Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable owns and manages the world's most advanced, best clustered cable television operations, with 90 percent of its 12.7 million customers in systems of 100,000 subscribers or more. It is a division of AOL Time Warner Inc.