SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Harmonic Inc. (Nasdaq: HLIT) today announced that C&M Co., Ltd. (C&M), the Republic of Korea's largest multiple system operator (MSO), has deployed digital video headend and IP transport systems from Harmonic to establish an OpenCable compliant digital CATV network. Harmonic's industry-leading expertise, products - including DiviCom® encoders, MediaNode(tm) multiplexers, Broadcast Network Gateway(tm) (BNG) edge devices and NMX Digital Service Manager(tm) - and professional services enabled C&M to enhance the flexibility, scalability and reliability of the network while taking full advantage of existing infrastructure investments.

One of the leading economies in Asia, South Korea has a high rate of adoption for digital services including cellular telephony, Internet access and, most recently, broadcast television. As in other parts of the world, operators in Korea are embracing advanced digital television services - such as video-on-demand and high definition television - to differentiate their service and deliver an exciting experience for the subscriber.

To remain at the competitive forefront and expand its subscriber base beyond the current one million households level, C&M needed an efficient way to increase the number and types of services while carefully managing the associated deployment and operational costs. Harmonic, as a result of its proven ability to deliver practical solutions to complex problems, was able to implement a scalable, easy to expand OpenCable compliant service infrastructure based on C&M's existing SDH data network that now delivers a suite of more than 80 channels of digital television.

"The Korean market for entertainment and information services is very competitive. Cable, direct-to-home satellite and terrestrial broadcasters are all aggressively targeting consumers with a variety of new digital services," said Mr. Kwang-Seong Oh, President and CEO of C&M. "At C&M we wanted to preserve our leadership by ensuring we had the best service offering and infrastructure to compete most effectively. Harmonic's digital video and OpenCable expertise allowed us to concentrate on the future rather than re-building what was already in place."

For maximum efficiency of operation and scalability, video services - and the Harmonic digital turnaround, MPEG encoding and multiplexing systems used to provision them - have been consolidated in C&M's new central digital headend. Harmonic's award winning Broadcast Network Gateway systems encapsulate the MPEG video in an IP packet for transport over the SDH network that interconnects the central and 12 regional headends. At each regional headend, BNG systems extract the digital video from the IP packets and reassemble it into a jitter-free MPEG stream that is distributed to subscribers over the existing hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) infrastructure. In addition, BNG systems located in the regional headends provide DVB scrambling services that seamlessly support C&M's chosen conditional access system and set-top boxes. This service transport and distribution model is rapidly becoming the architecture of choice for cable operators around the world.

"C&M is leading the field in the cable delivery of entertainment and information services. By implementing a standards-based infrastructure using Harmonic systems, C&M can incrementally add the new services needed to remain at the competitive forefront," said Dr. Yaron Simler, President of Harmonic's Convergent Systems Division. "Today, from an operator's perspective, it's no longer an option to replace even relatively small segments of an existing broadband network in order to deliver new services. Through our work with a diverse base of customers around the world, Harmonic has established a range of OpenCable and DVB compliant digital video solutions, along with network architecture expertise and professional services that yield a more flexible, adaptable and scalable broadband infrastructure."

The enhanced network infrastructure gives C&M vastly more flexibility in the ways that it can acquire new services with and/or through other providers. The architectural scalability of the packet-switched network makes it possible for the operator to easily extend its reach by adding new regional headends. What is more, over time and as business conditions permit, C&M can migrate from the SDH/IP platform to a native Ethernet/IP, gaining further flexibility and operational efficiencies.

Harmonic's NMX Digital Service Manager is used to centrally monitor and control the distributed digital video infrastructure. It also allows C&M to operate its infrastructure as a series of services rather than discrete hardware and software components, simplifying the task of adding new services and equipment. Deployed in conjunction with system and service redundancy, the NMX will automatically re-provision equipment in the event of a problem to ensure maximum availability.

Harmonic Inc.