Funai Electric to Demonstrate Residential Gateway Supporting Cable's All Digital Transition at The Cable Show '08 in New Orleans

OSAKA, JAPAN — Funai Electric Co., Ltd. (TSE/OSE 6839) today announced their intent to exhibit a residential gateway of digital cable broadcasting at The Cable Show ’08, May 18-20 in New Orleans, LA. (Funai Booth#: 3705) Funai developed the residential gateway for the U.S. cable market with its core technology enabled by the “TeraPIX™” silicon solution from BroadLogic Network Technologies, and will leverage Funai’s high volume manufacturing expertise for large deployments.

This gateway can receive up to 24 channels of QAM signals and then convert them to over 80 channels of NTSC signals simultaneously. Once deployed, this gateway will allow MSOs to eliminate analog simulcast within the cable network while simultaneously delivering the same or customized analog service tier to their customers. A key benefit of this gateway is the ability to allow MSOs to reclaim the network analog bandwidth for use in other revenue generating applications.

Funai’s initial target market for this residential gateway is the U.S. broadband market. Future consideration is to support similar applications globally in markets such as Japan, China and India. At The Cable Show ’08, Funai plans to exhibit a first working sample by Funai’s own design, and demonstrate this gateway converting digital signals up to twenty analog TVs to show simultaneous conversion. Funai is targeting to deploy this residential gateway to the U.S. market in 2009.

Funai has a history of over 20 years for leading and delivering cost effective solutions in STB-related business, such as DVD players/recorders, and other audio visual-related business in the U.S. market. Funai’s products have been sold as store-brand items at major nationwide chain retail stores and ODM products of which result made us in the top 3 position in this market share. “We believe this residential gateway is the world first working sample. Funai’s innovation and production capacity will support Cable’s success and efforts in transitioning to an all digital network,” said Hideo Nakai, senior executive officer of Funai Electric.