PrediWave Drives VOD and Interactive TV Growth in China Through Major Service Deployments in the Fujian Province.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

BroadBand Plus 2002 (Booth #5026)

Fiber-Optic Networks Power Fujian Southeast Television Network To

Serve Up To Four Million Subscribers In Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Xiaman And

Guangzhou

ANAHEIM, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 2002

PrediWave, a global pioneer in providing cost-effective and bandwidth-efficient technologies for the delivery of video-on-demand (VOD) and interactive TV (iTV) services, today announced significant progress in the Southeast Television Network (SETVN) ongoing deployment of PrediWave's VOD and iTV services in Fujian Province, China. From central facilities located in the capital city of Fuzhou, SETVN depends upon the PrediWave Digital Broadband Delivery System and PrediWave's content forwarding system to provide VOD and iTV services to residents in the capital, and extends VOD and iTV services to the cities of Quanzhou and Xiamen. Upon completion, the VOD/iTV deployment could eventually serve four million subscribers. Additionally, PrediWave's digital broadband delivery system powers VOD services in the city of Guangzhou.

Located along China's southeastern coast, Fujian Province occupies an area of 46,873 square miles (121,400 square kilometers) and has a population of 30 million, with 4.6 million being current cable subscribers. For this heavily populated region, the complete turnkey PrediWave system enables SETVN to supply VOD programming access along with other interactive television services for all cable subscribers without the need for large amounts of bandwidth. This large deployment further demonstrates PrediWave's established success and commitment to delivering its unique technology in the U.S. marketplace.

"Our success in rolling out iTV and VOD services to these major cities in the Fujian Province demonstrates the key advantages in performance and scalability that are only possible with the PrediWave system," said Tony Qu, CEO of Fremont, Calif.-based PrediWave. "For U.S.-based cable and satellite operators, these technology deployments establish a new standard for which all VOD and iTV services should be measured."

PrediWave's Digital Broadband Delivery System enables the delivery of any type of content "on demand" to an unlimited number of consumers simultaneously. Therefore, PrediWave's system is more efficient and cost-effective than other VOD systems because it utilizes one stream of bandwidth per piece of content, rather than one increment per customer. Because PrediWave's system does not require a great deal of bandwidth, cable operators gain the ability to offer VOD and iTV services to virtually an unlimited number of subscribers.

The PrediWave Digital Broadband Delivery System uses the existing technology infrastructure of today's cable systems. Where no infrastructure exists, PrediWave also provides a unique content forwarding system that uses new one-way digital networks to provide a simple, cost-effective solution with minimal capital investment. This turnkey system provides all equipment necessary for full operation, including conditional access and network management systems, digital broadcast capability, VOD, text on demand, and video on request features. Using this content forwarding system, SETVN has eliminated the need to install regional headends to store and forward content from the central headend on to subscribers. The system leverages the national fiber optic backbone of the Network Cable Broadcasting Bureau to deliver the content from central headquarters in Fuzhou, delivering highly scalable services for the lowest possible deployment cost.

ABOUT PREDIWAVE

PrediWave delivers a complete video on demand (VOD) and iTV solution for cable and is the only provider of a turnkey solution for satellite. The company delivers any content "on demand" to an unlimited number of customers simultaneously, initially featuring integrated video on demand (VOD), digital television (DTV) broadcasting, video on request (VOR) and personal video recording (PVR) capabilities. It uses the existing technology infrastructure of today's cable and DBS systems for a simple, cost-effective solution with minimal capital investment. This revolutionary delivery system can be expanded to include a range of services including interactive TV, streaming media, games and high-speed Internet access. PrediWave's groundbreaking approach offers head-end servers and bandwidth capacity scaled according to how many movies an operator plans to deliver, not how many points of delivery. In late 2001, PrediWave entered the Chinese marketplace and successfully deployed its initial trial system with Beijing Cable Company (BCTV). Earlier this fall, PrediWave and Fujian Cable Company established an agreement to provide PrediWave's cable VOD services to 4.6 million Fujian customers from now through 2003. Founded in 1998, the company is headquartered in Fremont, CA, with offices in Beijing, China and San Jose, CA. For more information, visit www.prediwave.com.