"Industry leaders in technology, silicon, software, hardware, retail, and services are working together to accelerate the establishment of a specification, the development of products, and the adoption by consumers of home powerline networking," said Alberto Mantovani, president of HomePlug and division director of Small Business and Consumer Networking and Personal Computing for Conexant Systems, Inc. "We are very pleased to have Phonex Corporation as one of our members."

Commenting on Phonex's decision to join the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, Phil Robinson, 3Com's chief technology officer for the Residential Connectivity Group said, "3Com welcomes Phonex Corporation's participation in HomePlug. In our quest to provide radically simple consumer networking, powerline networks will play an important role. Phonex brings a wealth of experience in delivering low-bandwidth powerline solutions to market, and we're confident they will be able to apply that experience to the high-bandwidth work being done by HomePlug."

Phonex Corporation president and CEO, John Knab, has noted that by aligning itself with the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, Phonex can further drive its strategic marketing efforts to bring the first 10 Mbps power line networking products to the home. "The co-existence and compatibility which the recently adopted HomePlug standard brings to this industry helps expand the market at a much faster pace than it has ever grown before," said Knab, "and opens up important development opportunities for Phonex to augment our proven 12-year-old narrow band PLC applications with high-speed home networking technologies."

Phonex stands behind powerline communication because of an already established, and pervasive worldwide network of residential powerlines. With an average of 44 electrical outlets in every home, power line networking is ready to support the proliferation of Web and interactive home entertainment applications as consumers plug in a new generation of electronic information devices. The standardization which the HomePlug Powerline Alliance brings to the market will enable Phonex Corporation, and other manufacturers of embedded power line technology to co-exist peacefully, as more multimedia and Internet applications and appliances are designed for the home. "We're currently developing support chips and logic that allow communications providers to be first to market with low latency voice, data, and audio transmission across home power lines," said Paul Willes, director of engineering at Phonex Corporation. "Phonex's proven technology, combined with industry standardization allows these communications vendors to feel comfortable that when their customer plugs in a product which includes Phonex technology, it will be completely compatible with all other powerline technologies."

Mehrdad Negahban, president and CEO of Valence, a California-based mixed signal chip manufacturer, notes the significance that this compatibility will have in the emerging broadband market: "Powerline is a very unpredictable medium for data transmission, but Phonex has spent the last 12 years developing the knowledge and experience of how to use powerline as a viable and stable means of communication. Phonex technology will be key in the continued emergence of the broadband home networking market and we look forward to a long-term partnership with them as we develop enabling technologies for this dynamic industry."

Standards for the power line market also provide Phonex Corporation with unique opportunities to supply power line communications products to content providers for the cable, satellite, and interactive TV markets. "We're currently using Phonex's voice and data communications devices to install satellite TV set top boxes for our customers over home powerlines," said David Marmour, director of operations at MDU Communications, a national systems operator for DirecTV. "We have been very satisfied with the installation process using the Phonex product and are very excited about the huge jump into the future that Phonex is now poised to make as it works to move data at very high speeds over home electrical wiring."

For more information regarding Phonex Corporation and its products please contact:
public@phonex.com
6952 High Tech Drive
Midvale, UT 84047-3756
800.437.0101

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