Ensemble Communications and Digital Microwave Corporation Enter Into Distribution Partnership; Agreement Covers Worldwide Marketing and Sales of Broadband Access Systems.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 14, 2000

Ensemble Communications Inc., a supplier of next-generation broadband wireless access (BWA) equipment, announced at the 2000 Broadband Wireless World Forum that it has entered into a non-exclusive, worldwide marketing and distribution agreement with Digital Microwave Corporation (NASDAQ:DMIC), the global leader in sales of broadband access microwave radio systems. This move further expands Ensemble's distribution channels while enabling Digital Microwave to enhance its product portfolio for sales to the growing competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) market and to other customers worldwide.

Under the terms of the agreement, Digital Microwave will place an initial purchase order for approximately $5 million of Ensemble's Fiberless(TM) system in the next few months. Subsequent purchases, driven by anticipated growth in the market, are expected to follow. Work to integrate the systems with network management and other enhancements will begin immediately.

"The Ensemble Fiberless system is clearly an advanced point-to-multipoint BWA product with market-leading features and cost-effectiveness for the CLEC market," said Chuck Kissner, Digital Microwave's Chairman and CEO. "By expanding our already broad product portfolio to include the Fiberless system, we can now provide more complete turnkey wireless solutions--consisting of leading-edge products such as our 155 Mbps Altium(TM), XP-4, Spectrum(TM) II, and DXR(TM) radios together with Ensemble's point to multipoint system--to both current customers and new ones."

The Fiberless point-to-multipoint BWA system is fueled by Ensemble's patented Adaptix(TM) technology consisting of Adaptive TDD, Adaptive TDMA and Adaptive Modulation. With these innovations, Fiberless enables the flexible delivery of broadband, packet-based services to end users in a way that best optimizes the use of both equipment and frequency resources. Recently the company submitted proposals to IEEE 802.16 and ETSI BRAN that contain many of the core ideas behind Adaptix for their use in creating an air interface standard.

"As the largest independent maker of broadband access microwave systems in the world, Digital Microwave is the perfect partner for Ensemble as we prepare for systems sales later this year," added Dave Twyver, Ensemble chief executive officer. "We look forward to the expanded market opportunities this represents in terms of customer reach worldwide. Digital Microwave's choice of Fiberless to supply to its blue chip customer list, combined with our recently awarded patent on Adaptive TDD, further validates our Adaptix technology and its implementation in our system."

The Fiberless system consists of the Fiberless 16000 Base Station, Fiberless 300 Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) and the Fiberless Management System (FMS). It has been engineered from the ground up, without reliance on legacy approaches, to help solve the unique challenges of the BWA market. A global platform, Fiberless is designed to serve BWA carriers with frequency licenses ranging from 10 to 43.5 GHz, and to seamlessly interconnect with IP, ATM and TDM backhaul architectures.

Digital Microwave Corporation provides microwave radio solutions to connect, enable and grow communications networks worldwide. The company's industry-leading broadband, medium-capacity and low-capacity radios transport data, voice and video for public and private networks in a wide range of global environments. Digital Microwave Corporation brings value to a diverse range of customers through its vast array of quality systems, services and support. Since its founding in 1984, Digital Microwave Corporation has sold more than 155,000 systems. A public company since 1987, Digital Microwave Corporation is traded under the symbol DMIC on the NASDAQ National Market.

Ensemble Communications designs, manufactures and markets its Fiberless(TM) point-to-multipoint system directly to Local Multipoint Distribution Services (LMDS) and other broadband wireless access carriers, and through partners, worldwide. Powered by Ensemble's patented Adaptix(TM) technology, Fiberless(TM) is the most advanced BWA solution on the market today and is the first capable of extending fiber cost effectively to deliver broadband services to business customers including both traditional telecom services and market-leading, differentiated offerings such as instantaneous asymmetry and bandwidth-on-demand services, VPNs and VOIP.

For more information about Ensemble or the Fiberless product, please visit the company's web site at www.ensemblecom.com.

Ensemble Communications, Fiberless and Adaptix are trademarks of Ensemble Communications Inc. Altium, SPECTRUM, and DXR are trademarks of Digital Microwave Corporation. For more information about Digital Microwave Corporation, visit www.dmcwave.com.