Louisville, Colorado, April 21, 2005—In a major milestone for the cable industry, CableLabs has awarded qualified status to five PacketCable Multimedia Policy Servers and a PacketCable Multimedia cable modem termination system (CMTS) in the certification wave 34 (CW 34) which concluded recently.

The policy servers are from CableMatrix, Camiant, C-COR, Tazz Networks and Telcordia. The CMTS is from Motorola. Also during CW 34, CableLabs certified six PacketCable 1.0 embedded multimedia terminal adapters (E-MTAs), a PacketCable 1.0 call management server, a PacketCable 1.1 media gateway and a PacketCable 1.0 media gateway. A complete list of vendors and their products is available on the CableLabs Web site under the Certification and Qualification area.

“Having multiple equipment manufacturers achieve CableLabs certification/qualification is an important step toward system interoperability,” said Ed Miller, Vice President of Advanced Network Services at CableLabs. “PacketCable is evolving into a true multi-service delivery platform for the cable industry.” PacketCable is a CableLabs-led initiative to define a common platform to deliver advanced real-time multimedia communication services, such as voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), over two-way cable plant. The PacketCable Multimedia specification defines Quality of Service (QoS) and accounting capabilities that cable operators can use to offer a wide variety of enhanced multimedia services, such as video communications and interactive games, over their DOCSIS® (Data over Cable Service Interface Specification) 1.1 or 2.0 networks.

“PacketCable Multimedia gives us a comprehensive toolkit for managing IP services on our broadband network,” said Steve Craddock, Executive Vice President of Comcast New Media Development. “Multimedia is a scalable, modular technology that will enable us to enhance the way we deliver new real-time services to our customers.”

The PacketCable initiative has followed a similar process to that employed in the successful DOCSIS program. Manufacturers that receive CableLabs certification or qualification for their E-MTA, CMTS, Call Management Server (CMS), Media Gateway Controller (MGC), media gateway (MG), PacketCable Multimedia CMTS, or PacketCable Multimedia Policy Server, have successfully completed an extensive series of interoperability tests supported by CableLabs' membership. These PacketCable devices were tested for interoperability in combination with other PacketCable components.

CableLabs® CertifiedTM or CableLabs Qualified means that the device has passed a series of tests for compliance with the indicated version of PacketCable and has thus demonstrated interoperable functionality with other “CableLabs certified/qualified” devices. “CableLabs Certified” is awarded to devices that will be used in a residence or business. “CableLabs Qualified” is awarded to devices that are used in a cable operator’s network.

Many of these devices provide other functions or are designed to comply with other specifications, in each case tailored by the manufacturer to meet the growing needs of consumers or cable operators in an evolving communication/entertainment sector. While CableLabs encourages such innovation and diversity, the phrase CableLabs certified/qualified should not be understood as an endorsement of these other attributes (or that the product is certified to other specifications or versions), which are solely the responsibility of the company making the additional claims.

Founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry, Cable Television Laboratories is a non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org, www.ebif.tv and www.tru2way.com.

CableCARD™, CableHome®, CableLabs®, CableNET®, CablePC™, DCAS™, DOCSIS®, EBIF™, Go2BroadbandSM, M-Card™, OpenCable™, PacketCable™, and tru2way® are marks of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.