Baltimore is Chosen for the Site of ICTV's East Coast Engineering Operations; ICTV Will Tap Into Strong Talent Pool Of East Coast Software Engineers.

Business Editors

LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 20, 2000

ICTV, provider of the cable industry's most robust solution for delivery of broadband Internet TV services to digital set-tops, today announced the opening of a new engineering office in the East Coast.

The new office, which will open on October 2, 2000, is located in Hunt Valley, just a few minutes north of Baltimore, Maryland.

"Opening up the Baltimore office will broaden our reach in recruiting software engineering talent and servicing our customers and partners in the East Coast," said senior vice president of engineering for ICTV, Jeff Miller.

"In addition to giving us access to a talented and experienced pool of engineers, the Baltimore office will make it easier to integrate the technology of our partners into our product. This expansion will be a great complement to our existing team in Los Gatos."

The new Baltimore office, which will launch with an initial staff of eight but has plans for aggressive growth, will be critical in achieving ICTV's objectives to strengthen the relationships it has with its key technology partners in the Eastern region. Plans also include the accelerated integration of technology into its digital interactive platform.

Projects that will be handled out of Baltimore will include e-mail integration with third parties, set top box integration with companies such as Motorola, and the development of remote management software. These divisions will be directly responsible for adding features to our existing product that will enable cable operators to deliver an even greater range of enhanced interactive services to their customers.

This core team will recruit additional staff that will add to ICTV's culture of recruiting talented people with new ideas and fresh product concepts.

Within the ITV marketplace, ICTV is positioned as a manufacturer and supplier of communications equipment and software. ICTV sells rack-mounted equipment that is installed in a cable operator's headend. ICTV's core system software components manage switching of resources to consumer sessions, browsing activity, encoding and multiplexing, network management, provisioning, customer service, and billing through third party billing applications.

ICTV's headend-based system represents a uniquely powerful approach to the TV Browser. The system relies upon rack-mounted, Intel-based processing clients at the headend to execute browsing activity. These clients run Internet Explorer sessions and are connected to the Internet or local servers over a 100Mbps LAN connection. As the consumer is browsing, the video and audio of the session is converted from computer format (VGA) to digital cable (MPEG2) and displayed on the television using a standard digital cable set top.

On an a la carte basis, ICTV also supplies a range of software applications, including a turnkey e-mail solution, a TV portal application that cable operators can brand and program with content, a turnkey PC-gaming solution with over 100 licensed games from leading providers, a standalone billing system capable of rate-based billing and a complete reporting system.

About ICTV

Headquartered in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, ICTV's new digital ITV delivery platform provides cable operators with a headend-based solution that enables delivery of broadband Internet, e-mail, and Interactive TV applications to any digital set top. Using a single standard cable channel, the ICTV system supports up to 100 simultaneous online sessions.

The system does not require any sort of middleware application in the set top and is compatible with all grades of MPEG2 set tops from any manufacturer and is fully scalable. All standard Internet content and applications will work on the ICTV system -- including broadband content requiring large bandwidth or advanced plug-ins.

The Company has 16 issued patents and 12 patents pending. Investors and strategic partners include ACTV (NASDAQ: IATV), Adelphia (NASDAQ: ADLAC), Cox (NYSE: COX), Lauder Partners, Liberty Digital (NASDAQ: LDIG), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), OpenTV (NASDAQ: OPTV), Shaw Communications (NYSE: SJR and TSE: SJR.B), and TV Guide (NASDAQ: TVGIA). ICTV can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.ictv.com.