Numericable Upgrades With Cisco

PARIS -- Cisco® (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced today that Numericable, the largest cable operator in France, has started a nationwide upgrade of its network based on the Cisco IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture to bring ultra-high-speed (up to 100+ megabits per second*) broadband services to more than 9 million households in France by the end of 2007. The upgrade will allow Numericable to offer customers a set of converged services, such as advanced video, voice and data services, over a single broadband connection.

Philippe Besnier, chief executive officer of Numericable, said: "Cisco is making it possible for us to further increase broadband speeds to our customers by another order of magnitude, with the potential for even higher rates in the future. This gives us a significant advantage in what is now the most competitive triple-play market in Europe."

Numericable is deploying fiber to customers´ premises nationwide and is increasing throughput of its existing network by using the Cisco Wideband solution, which applies downstream channel-bonding technology (defined in the CableLabs® DOCSIS® 3.0 specification) to logically combine several radio frequency (RF) channels to achieve theoretical broadband data rates in excess of hundreds of megabits per second. The solution uses the industry-leading Cisco uBR10012 cable modem termination systems (CMTS), and high-density xDQA24 edge quadrature amplitude modulators (QAMs) and EPC2505 Wideband cable modems from Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company.

Thierry Drilhon, vice president, Cisco France, said: "We are working with cable operators throughout Europe to help them optimize their networks using DOCSIS 3.0 downstream channel-bonding technology. Today´s announcement with Numericable is significant as it marks the start of a new phase with our systems delivering the benefits of this technology to users on a major scale. Numericable customers throughout France can look forward to being the first to experience the benefits of ultra wideband* services."

* The maximum performance is derived from standards specifications. Actual performance will be less, based on network capacity, data throughput rate, range, environmental and local conditions and coverage. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume of network traffic, building materials and construction, operating system used, interference and other adverse conditions.

Numericable-SFR

Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO)