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Vertex in the News | 2005

Mobile Technology Leaders Join to Deliver Public Demonstration of Live DVB-H Service
Crown Castle, DiBcom, Intel, Microsoft and Penthera Collaborate to Showcase Delivery of Live TV to Mobile Devices
Author:
(BUSINESS WIRE), Sep 27, 2005

(c) 2005 Business Wire. All Rights Reserved.

SAN FRANCISCO - - Sept. 27, 2005 - Today at CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2005, Intel demonstrated multichannel TV broadcast on Windows-based mobile devices equipped with add-on DiBcom DVB-H receivers, a first in the United States. The demonstration included live, brand-name TV services, digital music, and a feature-length movie, beamed from terrestrial transmitters using the Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld (DVB-H) protocol to a Windows Mobile-based PDA and a Windows Mobile-based phone. The media content was encoded using Microsoft`s Windows Media Audio and Video 9.

Penthera`s Athena-TV(TM) software system provided the user interface: channel changing capabilities, "grid views" and "detailed views" of upcoming programming. Athena-TV is a "virtual set top box" product comprising robust, configurable head-end server components and a multi-platform client. Athena-TV complies with the DVB-CBMS and Nokia OAI specifications for mobile broadcast. Designed specifically for the resource-limited environment of a mobile device, Athena-TV supports a wide range of operating systems including the Microsoft Windows(TM) family; Symbian/S60; Linux, and multiple processing platforms including Intel`s XScale and Pentium-M/Centrino.

"High quality mobile broadcasting such as demonstrated today presents a new and exciting opportunity to provide a true TV-like experience for the consumer, while creating a new revenue channel for content owners and aggregators," said Eric Schmidt, group product manager of Windows Digital Media at Microsoft Corp. "By using Windows Media, mobile content providers can seamlessly provide the highest quality audio and video irrespective of bandwidth constraints, therefore extending their reach to the hundreds of millions of users of Windows XP PCs and Windows Mobile devices."

The Windows Media 9 Series platform enables the secure delivery of high quality digital entertainment services over IP and other digital networks. The components of the Windows Media 9 Series platform are available from Microsoft in source code format, may be ported to mobile devices and are licensed under published terms that provide significant commercial advantages for device manufacturers compared with other available options. Windows Media Video 9 is Microsoft`s implementation of VC-1, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) draft standard, currently in trial publication as part of the final steps of standardization.

Crown Castle Mobile Media, a subsidiary of Crown Castle International (NYSE:CCI), provided the broadcast network infrastructure: real-time content aggregation and encoding, satellite distribution, and terrestrial broadcast using a 1670MHz band. DiBcom, a fabless semiconductor designer of high-performance chipsets for digital TV, provided the DVB-H receiver components.

About Crown Castle Mobile Media ( www.crowncastle.com )

Crown Castle Mobile Media is a subsidiary of Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI). Crown Castle engineers, deploys, owns and operates technologically advanced shared wireless infrastructure, including extensive networks of towers. Crown Castle offers significant wireless communications coverage to 68 of the top 100 U.S. markets and to substantially all of the Australian population. Crown Castle owns, operates and manages over 10,600 and over 1,300 wireless communication sites in the U.S. and Australia, respectively.

Crown Castle Mobile Media intends to build and operate a dedicated DVB-H network for broadcasting digital television content to mobile devices including cell phones. The proposed network will utilize five megahertz (MHz) of unencumbered nationwide spectrum acquired by Crown Castle through Federal Communications Commission Auction 46 in 2003.

About DiBcom ( www.dibcom.net )

DiBcom is a fabless semiconductor company that designs high-performance chipsets used at the heart of mobile broadcast digital TV as well as in automotive, PC/peripheral and handheld device applications. DiBcom has developed patented algorithms and architecture for fast and accurate channel estimation and high Doppler compensation that enable low-power portable TV reception everywhere and provide "Proven Performance" at speeds exceeding 100 mph.
About Penthera ( www.penthera.com )

Penthera is a privately-held company providing a complete software solution for mobile broadcast including middleware and application-level software on the broadcast head-end and on handheld devices. Founded in 2005, Penthera`s executive team previously founded and operated Eizel Technologies, Inc., which built mobile web and email connectivity software. Eizel was acquired by Nokia in 2003. Penthera is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Statements contained in this new release regarding the growth of the mobile DTV handset market, each company`s respective market penetration and qualification of products and other statements of management`s beliefs, goals and expectations may be considered forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. The following factors and the factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements contained in this press release: actual market demand for mobile DTV products in general and demand for each company`s products specifically, and actual certification test results relating to each company`s products. Each company disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release.


 

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