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Motorola Celebrates 50 Million Digital Cable Set-Tops Shipped and 10 Years of Digital Cable Leadership


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HORSHAM, PA – 19 OCT 2006 -- In 1996, the very first digital cable networks were built, and with them came the promise of a new world of home entertainment: Digital television with crystal-clear stereo sound and high-definition picture quality, thousands of movies and shows available on-demand, interactive on-screen applications such as program guides, and more – all delivered to a digital cable receiver in the living room.

Today, Motorola, Inc (NYSE:MOT) celebrates the shipment of the company’s 50 millionth digital cable set-top, and reflects on ten years of invention for the connected home that has turned our original promise into a reality.

“From the start, it was evident the digital cable network would be a disruptive technology, which is why we dedicated our very best minds to innovate around the set-top and the network. They responded by getting the world’s first commercial digital cable set-top into the field,” explains John Burke, Motorola corporate vice president and responsible for the company’s digital video portfolio. “Ten years later, we’re still using the fundamentals learned by that team to help the cable industry enable new types of entertainment experiences for their customers – inside and outside of their homes.”

General Instrument Corporation, later acquired by Motorola, shipped the Digital Consumer Terminal (DCT) Model 1000 set-top to customers in October of 1996. The product included an internal tuner that could receive the then-standard analog video signals traveling through a cable network, and a second tuner which could descramble the newer, video signals. The DCT-1000 also supported QAM-64 (quadrature amplitude modulation), the standard at the time for network transmission.

Today, Motorola has deployed over 2,060 digital video headends worldwide, and offers the broadest portfolio of products and solutions for the cable industry. Motorola’s DCT line of set-tops includes the flagship DCT6400 series, a dual-tuner, high-definition digital video recorder capable of home media networking, and the compact DCT700, a slimline cable receiver that bring basic interactive applications to over 1 million households throughout the United States. Within the total of 50 million, Motorola has delivered over 8 million high-definition capable receivers and over 5 million digital video recorders to cable operators worldwide.

For the company’s outstanding achievement in the development of consumer digital set-tops, Motorola received an Emmy® Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2002.
Editors Note: It may be challenging to visualize the enormity of the number 50 million set-tops, so we have provided some stats to help illustrate.

* 50 million Motorola set-tops stacked one on top of the other would reach a height of over 11 million feet, almost 400 times that of Mount Everest!
* 50 million Motorola set-tops placed end-to-end in a straight line would cover the distance from London to Sydney, Australia.

This milestone is the latest in a series of achievements Motorola has celebrated this year, including the shipment of its 50 Millionth MOTORAZR™ and the 10th anniversary of its TETRA terrestrial trunked radio network.

A timeline of Motorola’s leadership in digital video as well as hi-res photos are available upon request.

About Motorola
Motorola is known around the world for innovation and leadership in wireless and broadband communications. Inspired by our vision of Seamless Mobility, the people of Motorola are committed to helping you get and stay connected simply and seamlessly to the people, information, and entertainment that you want and need. We do this by designing and delivering “must have” products, “must do” experiences and powerful networks -- along with a full complement of support services. A Fortune 100 company with global presence and impact, Motorola had sales of US $36.8 billion in 2005. For more information about our company, our people and our innovations, please visit www.motorola.com.

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MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office. MOTORAZR is a trademark of Motorola, Inc. Emmy is a registered trademark of the unincorporated association of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. © Motorola, Inc. 2006. All rights reserved.



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