Ali, here is something of interest.
General Instrument Corporation Ships One Millionth Interactive Digital Set-Top Terminal
PR Newswire, Monday, March 30, 1998 at 11:12
Milestone Illustrates Tremendous Industry Acceptance
Of GI Digital Interactive Platform
HORSHAM, Pa., March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- General Instrument Corporation
(NYSE:GIC) announced today that it has shipped its one-millionth DCT-1000
interactive digital set-top terminal. This shipment marks a significant
milestone in the rapid deployment and market acceptance of General
Instrument's MPEG-2 digital interactive system, introduced a little more than
a year ago. In addition to these one million set-top terminals shipped to
customers, GI currently has digital systems installed in more than 500 cable
TV headends, which gives GI's digital platform an impressive service footprint
of more than 25 million North American homes passed.
The continuing acceptance of GI's digital technology was further
accelerated when definitive agreements were completed with 12 leading North
American cable operators, to provide approximately 15 million interactive
digital set-tops in support of their continued digital deployments. These
agreements valued at more than $4.5 billion for the next three to five years,
with operators serving more than 46 million customers, represent the
industry's continued confidence in GI's digital leadership as well as the
cable industry's combined commitments to rolling out digital technology.
GI was the first company to enter the digital set-top market and, to date,
is the only company that has delivered interactive digital set-tops on a mass
commercial basis. General Instrument offers a complete line of digital
set-top terminals for the cable industry, allowing operators to tailor their
digital set-top choices to the services they wish to deploy. The
inter-operability of these different models allows operators to offer
different service "tiers" within a single system, and maximize the use of
capital resources.
The DCT-1000, GI's current generation of interactive digital set-top,
offers a rich feature set including real-time RF return for interactivity,
MPEG-2 digital video, Dolby AC3 Digital audio, and the ability to integrate
seamlessly with embedded GI analog systems. The DCT-1000 provides the
industry with a powerful platform capable of delivering a wide range of
applications such as video-on-demand, Internet access, community networking,
interactive program guides and more.
Most digital deployments to date have generated consumer enthusiasm for
new features such as electronic program guides as well as the increased
channel lineups offered by operators in their digital launches. Operators
have been benefiting not only from increased customer satisfaction and
improvement of their competitive position versus rival services such as DBS,
but have also been reaping the financial benefits of increased premium and
pay-per-view buy rates afforded by their enhanced digital channel lineups. In
addition to the positive impact digital technology has on these key
unregulated revenue streams, operators are now preparing to introduce new
interactive services to the market, which will generate even more incremental
revenues for their digital systems. The rollouts of these new services, such
as Internet access, email, video-on-demand and more, via GI's digital
interactive platform, will begin in the next few months and continue
throughout the year.
"This landmark shipment represents GI's commitment to providing operators
with the most advanced digital technology, enabling them to increase channel
capacity, provide superior picture quality and add the latest interactive
services," said Denton Kanouff, Vice President of Marketing for General
Instrument's Digital Network Systems group. "We are proud of our continued
leadership in helping cable operators, and their customers, reap the benefits
of interactive digital cable technology. The increasing demand for and
acceptance of digital technology among consumers, coupled with the support of
the industry in committing to aggressive digital rollouts, have helped us to
achieve another important milestone for our digital systems, while other
suppliers' systems are still struggling to launch."
General Instrument Corporation (NYSE:GIC) is the world leader in analog
and digital systems that provide video, audio and high-speed Internet/data
services over cable and satellite TV networks. GI's cable and satellite TV
operations have approximately 7,000 employees and annual sales of
approximately $1.8 billion.
Visit General Instrument at their Web Site - gi.com
SOURCE General Instrument Corporation
-0- 03/30/98
/CONTACT: Dick Badler, VP, Corporate Communications, 215-323-1618, or
dbadler@gi.com, or Sharon Corbitt, Media Relations Manager, 215-323-1873, or
scorbitt@gi.com, both of General Instrument/
/Web site: gi.com |
