Study Confirms the Vital Importance of Video Quality to the Success of IPTV 

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Feb. 19, 2008 - Symmetricom, Inc. released a study conducted by Multimedia Research Group, Inc. (MRG, Inc.) that assessed telecommunications service providers' requirements for IPTV test, measurement and monitoring solutions. Results of the study confirm that video quality is critical to the growth and success of IPTV, significantly affecting customer support calls and customer churn. Importantly, the study also revealed that service providers feel their existing monitoring solutions lack an accurate measurement of perceptual end-user quality. In addition, most service providers believe an end-to-end solution is required to monitor and understand quality issues occurring at the headend, access networks and the home - where the majority of video quality problems can occur. 

Key results of the study show:

· 84% reported video quality monitoring as critical or a very important part of their video initiative 
· Over 90% of respondents were notified about service quality problems from subscriber calls 

President and Principal Analyst of MRG Gary Schultz commented on the study's findings, "Service providers understand the importance of video quality to their bottom line, yet feel they do not currently have the right solution for monitoring and managing video quality from the content ingest point at the headend to the customer premises equipment (CPE) in the home. This Symmetricom study strongly suggests that video quality is top-of-mind with IPTV service providers and a main driver for telco customer churn." 

"Service providers need a true end-to-end solution for monitoring IPTV services to deliver a high quality video experience to their customers," added David Cox, Symmetricom's EVP GM of the Quality of Experience (QoE) Assurance Division. "The demand for high-definition TV programming is exploding, raising the video quality bar by consumers as they become dissatisfied with anything less than an HD experience. Service providers need to implement a comprehensive perceptual video quality monitoring solution that can ensure they meet their customers' expectations, or risk losing some customers." 

NAPLES, Fla. - Feb. 14, 2008 - Following the history of a company that was a pioneer in providing faith-based and family entertainment to America for more than a decade, a new company, Sky Angel U.S. LLC, has forged fresh territory by today unveiling the nation's first broad-based Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service devoted to Christian and family TV and radio programming - currently featuring 70 channels. 
Sky Angel U.S. LLC is now taking orders for its IPTV service, which features the widest variety of Christian TV and radio channels ever made available in one package by a television service provider, plus many popular mainstream family channels, including news and sports.
The 70 faith and family channels that have joined the Sky Angel IPTV lineup to date are available through three reasonably priced programming packages: a Faith Package ($14.99/mo.), a Family Package ($19.99/mo.) and both packages offered as a Family Values Pak ($24.99/mo.). Faith channels include FamilyNet, Liberty Channel, God TV, JCTV, Gospel Music Channel, EWTN, CatholicTV and many others. Among the family channels are Discovery Channel, Fox Business Network, The Weather Channel, Discovery Kids, Hallmark 

Susanna Liu
PCCW Limited
Tel: (852) 2883 7952
Email: susanna.wy.liu@pccw.com

The launch of this new service and company comes following more than 10 years of providing Christian and family programming. The past service was provided by Dominion Video Satellite Inc. via high-power direct broadcast satellite (DBS) during the early days of that technology. "Our founder and my father, Robert Johnson Sr., launched the Sky Angel brand more than a decade ago when high-power DBS technology was in its infancy," said Sky Angel CEO Rob Johnson. "Today, our new company, Sky Angel U.S. LLC, shares that same pioneering spirit by employing new innovative technology that will enable the service to expand quickly and cost-effectively while maximizing the viewing experience for our subscribers." 

(239) 403-9130 Ex. 213 
Nancy.christopher@skyangel.com

Ixia Opens State of the Art Proof-of-Concept Lab and Executive Briefing Center in Silicon Valley

CALABASAS, Calif. - (February 26, 2008) - Ixia (NASDAQ: XXIA), a leading global provider of IP performance test systems, today announced the opening of "iSimCity," an executive briefing center and proof-of-

concept (PoC) lab adjacent to its sales and services offices in Santa Clara, Calif. Today Ixia will conduct a city-scale demonstration on assuring Quality of Experience (QoE) in high performance, converged multi-play networks.

With the ability to conduct city-scale testing at iSim City, customers can access thousands of test ports and aggregate traffic in the range of 10-100 Gbps, emulate hundreds of thousands of subscribers/users and generate millions of routes with thousands of routing peers. They also can conduct system testing by emulating dozens of infrastructure servers, including load balancers, denial of service defenders, switches, routers, video servers, SIP proxies, and DNS and DHCP servers. 

"Our goal is to provide carrier grade scale with real-world network emulation that will provide quick proof to our customers that Ixia's test solutions are essential in getting their products and services to market more quickly," said Atul Bhatnagar, Ixia president and COO. "iSimCity has all the industry-leading Ixia software and hardware solutions so customers can be assured that their equipment and services are benchmarked with the best of breed testing solutions." 

Network equipment manufacturers, service providers and enterprises often request proof-of-concept demonstrations, at scale, before they will commit to purchasing test applications and equipment. Both test hardware and software must function with the devices tested. 

Ixia's iSimCity PoC lab can complement companies' existing test labs and accelerate time to market by adding bandwidth for in-house projects, or handle short lead time requests for testing that their in-house test resources cannot schedule. And with Ixia's Test Conductor, the entire test plan design and execution can be automated to speed the same process to just a fraction of the time. 

In addition the PoC test facilities and executive briefings, customers can take 

advantage of Ixia's professional services and schedule third-party tests in iSimCity's advanced lab environment. 

Yankee Group Says IPTV Will Be the Game-Changer for Subscription Services 

Boston, MA, Boston, MA, January 20, 2008-Yankee Group today announced that IPTV will redefine pay TV in the United States. IPTV will change the competitive landscape for subscription services by morphing the service from one-size-fits-all traditional broadcast TV into an open, flexible, customizable offering, tailored to the needs of local communities. By 2011, more than 9 million households in the US will subscribe to telco-provided video service.

IPTV's influence in the communications field and on consumer communications services in the US is driven by the impact of the global connectivity revolution on business and market dynamics. As a result, we are witnessing massive transformations taking place in media and entertainment and communications industries. With the digitization of content and the internet as a platform, both industries are morphing from structured, linear ecosystems to open and fluid sectors influenced by greater consumer control. 

"IPTV will forever alter the video ecosystem by creating not only a new breed of service, but also a new breed of service 

According to the recently published Yankee Group Report, From Gorillas to Guerrillas, IPTV Changes Everything, IPTV will also forever transform how telcos operate. It will take the service providers from being highly centralized, giant corporations to become decentralized, flexible entities that can respond much more rapidly to the specific needs of the communities they serve. In addition to the share-shifting that will take place among cable, satellite and telcos in the video market, there will be more fundamental changes:

· IPTV will change the organizational structure of telcos. 
· IPTV will create micro-markets of intense local competition in the US surrounded by wide swaths of territory where cable operators face only satellite competition. 
· IPTV will change the way applications are developed for TV. 
· IPTV will force the cable companies to become more dynamic and responsive. 

"IPTV changes the rules of the game for the consumer communications services in the US," added Anton Denissov, Yankee Group analyst. "To become guerrillas, telcos must shift executive authority to local management. Those that do not have the flexibility will lose out to the competition."

Box allows one channel to be recorded while watching another and has a capacity of 80 hours of recording.

Deutsche Telekom's price offensive

Mar 03, 2008 At its CeBIT press conference, Deutsche Telekom announced a tariff push for its fixed-line and mobile services. Entertain packages will now be available for up to 17 percent less. T-Mobile is offering new flat rates for voice telephony and mobile Internet. The foundation for the new offers: the best broadband service in Germany.

Timotheus Höttges, Deutsche Telekom Board Member responsible for T-Home Sales and Service and Philipp Humm, Managing Director, T-Mobile Germany, explained to journalists in Hanover which products and tariffs Deutsche Telekom wants to use to position itself as the market leader in connected life and work. "Entertain allows us to connect the advantages of a comprehensive IP TV offering, high-speed Internet and flat rate voice telephony," says Höttges. "With that, we have taken the first step towards connected life." Now, the focus is on continually developing products. 

"Starting in April, our customers will be able to program their media receivers over the Internet from any PC or Internet-capable handset," continues Höttges. Over the Web, customers have direct access to TV listings, from which they can select the program they are looking for and, using their password, program their receiver to record it. The Entertain complete packages will also let customers use their television to view and listen to photos and music they have on their PC. And all while T-Home cuts prices. As of now, the Entertain Comfort starter package costs 49.95 euros, 17 percent less than before. Starting in mid-April, the Entertain Comfort Plus package will be available for 59.95 euros. These prices are just ten euros higher than comparable double-play offers. The new Entertain Premium package will be available starting in April for 69.95 euros.

Max tariffs allow T-Mobile customers to talk on the phone as much as they want with flat rates. Max L is the first tariff to offer a 79.95-euro monthly flat rate to call any German fixed-line or mobile network. For 14.95 euros, the Max S tariff offers customers a flat rate for the German fixed-line network. A flat rate for unlimited mobile surfing rounds out the range of tariffs: The web'n'walk HandyFlat tariff costs 9.95 euros per month. web'n'walk L, the equivalent product for surfing with a laptop has a monthly fee of 34.95 euros.

Apple Premieres iTunes Movie Rentals With All Major Film Studios

SAN FRANCISCO-January 15, 2008-Apple® announced iTunes® Movie Rentals featuring movies from all the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies for as low as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone™ and Apple TV®. iTunes Movie Rentals launches today and will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV. iTunes Movie Rentals are priced at $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99. 

"Apple has created an incredibly easy and innovative way to rent and enjoy movies," said Jim Gianopulos, chairman and chief executive officer of Fox Filmed Entertainment. "Millions of movie lovers will be able to watch wonderful movies from Fox and the other major studios whenever and wherever they want, be it on their computer, TV, iPod or iPhone." 
iTunes Movie Rentals feature iTunes' legendary ease of use, which makes discovering and enjoying movie rentals as simple and easy as buying music on iTunes has always been. Once a movie is rented, it starts downloading from the iTunes Store directly to iTunes or Apple TV, and users with a fast Internet connection can start viewing the movie in seconds. Customers have up to 30 days to start watching it, and once a movie has been started customers have 24 hours to finish it-or watch it multiple times. 

The all new Apple TV software delivers an entirely new user experience centered around iTunes Movie Rentals, allowing movie fans to rent and watch movies right from their widescreen TV, with no computer required. Users can also view photos from their computers, Flickr and .Mac Web 

Galleries on their widescreen TV as slideshows or screen savers, and anytime photos are updated on Flickr or .Mac they are automatically updated on Apple TV. Apple TV users can now browse and enjoy the iTunes Store podcast directory of over 125,000 video and audio podcasts, view over 50 million originally created videos from YouTube, or choose from a selection of six million songs, over 600 TV shows and 10,000 music videos to purchase directly from their Apple TV. Purchases downloaded to Apple TV are automatically synced back to iTunes on the user's computer for enjoyment on their computer, iPod® or iPhone. 
   Natalie Kerris
   Apple
   nat@apple.com
   (408) 974-6877