Tele Columbus and PrimaCom Choose NDS MediaHighway®, Reinforcing NDS Middleware Leadership in German Pay-TV

Highlights:

* Leading German cable operators Tele Columbus and PrimaCom select NDS MediaHighway® advanced middleware solution
* MediaHighway to support Tele Columbus and PrimaCom to centrally manage their set-top box (STB) population across different networks and headends located all over Germany
* MediaHighway enables Tele Columbus and PrimaCom to introduce new value-added services such as Digital Video Recorder (DVR) functionality and Video on Demand (VOD)
* New agreement underscores MediaHighway’s position as pre-eminent middleware in German pay-TV

LONDON, UK – NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, today announced that Tele Columbus and PrimaCom, together forming Germany’s third-largest cable operator, have selected NDS’ advanced MediaHighway® middleware solution to power their pay-TV business, further reinforcing MediaHighway’s leadership in the German pay-TV industry.

In 2008, Tele Columbus and PrimaCom introduced market-leading VideoGuard® content protection technology from NDS. All of the VideoGuard-equipped set-top boxes (STBs) of the two partner companies will also feature MediaHighway. The Group serves some 3.5 million cable-connected households and operates a large number of independent networks.

NDS MediaHighway is an open middleware infrastructure, enabling efficient centralised management of Tele Columbus’ and PrimaCom’s STB populations across all independent networks and headends. The two cable operators can now further strengthen their unified brand because MediaHighway enables the user interface and on-screen design to have a common look and feel across all current and future STBs, harmonising the overall TV experience for subscribers. Other benefits include enhanced efficiency for STB maintenance and customer care operations.

Additionally, thanks to MediaHighway, Tele Columbus and PrimaCom have the ability to flexibly introduce new and advanced TV services such as DVR functionality, Push VOD, VOD, a broad range of interactive applications such as TV games and many more service extensions. Third-party applications which can run on MediaHighway’s open software architecture can also be included in Tele Columbus’ and PrimaCom’s service offering. The NDS solution gives the two cable providers the ability to swiftly launch integrated service enhancements identically over all existing and future STBs in a single roll-out operation.

Markus Schmid, CEO of Tele Columbus and PrimaCom, explained: “Following our choice of NDS VideoGuard, we now have also selected its MediaHighway middleware in order to benefit from an end-to-end solution with NDS as one of our main technology partners. NDS middleware offers many advantages to us, fulfilling the core requirement for centralised and efficient management of our STB population, currently being deployed in many independent networks which have widely varying headend technology. Based on these two world market-leading solutions from NDS, we look forward to introducing the next generation of digital services to enhance the TV experience for our subscribers – and provide a best-in-class technology infrastructure for our content and programming partners.”

Yves Padrines, Vice President, Business Development at NDS and General Manager NDS GmbH, said: “We are proud to announce that with Tele Columbus and PrimaCom, one of the leading cable groups in the German market has decided to select MediaHighway middleware to enhance their businesses and we look forward to supporting the Group in its upcoming initiatives.” He continued: “This announcement further strengthens the position of NDS and MediaHighway in the German market. We are gratified that Germany’s pay-TV innovators have entrusted NDS technology to help them deliver a superior viewing experience to their audiences.”

About NDS
NDS Group Ltd. creates the technologies and applications that enable pay-TV operators to securely deliver digital content to TV STBs (set-top boxes), DVRs (digital video recorders), PCs, mobiles and other multimedia devices. Over 70 of the world’s leading pay-TV platforms rely on NDS solutions to protect and enhance their businesses. VideoGuard® is the world’s market-leading conditional access (CA) and digital rights management (DRM) technology, currently deployed on more than 99 million active devices, and safeguarding pay-TV service revenues exceeding $40 billion. NDS middleware, including MediaHighway® which enables a host of advanced services for subscribers, has been deployed on 108 million devices. NDS DVR technology, centred around XTV®, leads the global industry with 17 million units deployed. (Deployment figures as of 31st December 2008)

Headquartered in the UK, NDS remains committed to investing in R&D with over 75% of its employees dedicated to pioneering work at development centres in China, Denmark, France, India, Israel, Korea and US. NDS has also implemented a host of initiatives aimed at reducing its carbon footprint and helping digital TV subscribers reduce energy consumption.

NDS Group Ltd. is a private company owned by the Permira Funds and News Corporation. See www.nds.com for more information.

About Tele Columbus and PrimaCom
Tele Columbus and the listed PrimaCom AG (DE0006259104) are among Germany’s largest cable network operators. Together, they provide some 3.5 million connected households with a TV signal and an increasing number of customers with digital programming, Internet access and telephone connections via powerful broadband cable. As national operators with a regional focus and as partners of the housing industry, Tele Columbus and PrimaCom are present throughout their core area of Berlin, Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thüringen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as well as in numerous core regions in West Germany. Together, the two partners encourage innovation and lively competition in the telecommunications market. See www.telecolumbus.de and www.primacom.de for more information.