News Releases

6/13/2007

Falcon Broadband to Deploy Hitachi GPON Solution In Colorado Springs Area

--Selection Marks First Commercial Full-Rate Residential GPON Deployment in the U.S. by a Cable Television Operator--

ATLANTA, GA, June 13, 2007- Hitachi Telecom (USA), Inc. today announced that the company's AMN1220 Gigabit Passive Optical Network product has been selected by Falcon Broadband of Colorado Springs, CO to deliver video, high-speed Internet, and voice services in Falcon's service area in Colorado Springs and surrounding areas. The choice of Hitachi's full-rate GPON solution allows Falcon to offer high-bandwidth triple play services using a system that has been proven in commercial service for a full year. Deploying GPON from the beginning will position Falcon Broadband to upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate new high bandwidth services that will come on stream in the future.

Falcon Broadband, a Colorado Springs provider of triple play services - cable television, high speed Internet, traditional voice or voice over IP (VoIP) - has already trialed the Hitachi GPON solution, and will begin installation immediately. Falcon Broadband will offer services based on GPON technology in phases throughout their coverage area starting with the Flying Horse community currently being developed by Colorado Springs-based Classic Homes. Other communities and neighborhoods within the city will follow later this year, including Latigo Trails, Ellicott Town Center, The Metro Club, Cathedral Pines, Falcon Highlands, East Brook, and Davis Ranch. The Falcon Broadband deployment also represents the first commercial deployment in the United States of GPON by a cable television operator, further cementing the concept that GPON is the solution of choice for the efficient delivery of broadband triple play services.

"The fact that Hitachi has a track record of commercial service and could show us revenue-generating full-rate GPON installations was critical to our decision to deploy their product," said Randy DeYoung, Falcon Broadband CEO. "Our customers expect leading-edge communications services, and Hitachi's GPON system gives us the bandwidth headroom we need to to add future advanced services for our subscribers."

"Hitachi is very pleased to support Falcon Broadband's initiatives in Colorado Springs," said Rick Schiavinato, Hitachi Telecom vice president, sales and marketing. "This is a technology-focused city that will benefit tremendously from the GPON bandwidth offered by Falcon Broadband. And as a cable TV operator, Falcon will have the ability to offer both RF video services and advanced IPTV services via their leading edge fiber optic network."

Colorado Springs, with an area population of over 587,000, is home to the United States Air Force Academy, Lockheed Martin, Oracle, Agilent, and the United States Olympic Training Center. In 2006 Colorado Springs was named America's No. 1 big city to live in (CNN Money Magazine).

About Hitachi's Fiber to the Premises Products

Hitachi's FTTP platform is a family of products that provides ultra high bandwidth communication services to residential, business and institutional subscribers using a single optical fiber direct to the subscriber's premises.

Hitachi's GPON products for North America are compliant with ITU-T G.984 standards, providing assurance that service providers will have maximum flexibility in implementing FTTP solutions as applications and capabilities develop in the future. Hitachi's AMN1220 product was the first full-rate GPON platform to be deployed in commercial service in the United States (Bandon, Oregon, June 2006), and was the first GPON product to be certified by the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), supporting in-home networking using existing coaxial cable deployed for cable television service. In May 2007, the AMN1220 became the first full-rate GPON product to be listed by the USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS) for use in RUS-funded broadband deployments.