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Salt Lake City, UT - 12.18.2000 - With multiple patents and 6.5 million Wireless Jack
for Modems™ installed, Phonex Corporation has gained an early lead into the explosive interactive TV market with
products that link set-top-boxes to the telephone line. "The first TV set-top-boxes with modems were introduced in
1994 so that consumers could order pay-per-view movies with their TV remote control, which sent the request over the
telephone line," notes John Knab, CEO of Phonex Corporation. "The problem was that no one had a phone jack behind their
TV. This caused serious logistical installation problems for major set-top-box manufacturers. Phonex recognized that
its powerline phone extension system could solve this problem and began marketing it as a solution to the cable and
satellite TV industry," says Knab.
Phonex Corporation now services major customers within the industry such as Adelphia, DirecTV, EchoStar, and Thomson
Consumer Electronics. By plugging the Wireless Jack for Modems into the AC outlet behind a customer's TV set, these
set-top-box providers can create an instant telephone jack without having to hardwire additional phone lines.
The set-top-box industry is changing the way people use their TV sets. Applications like the personal video recorder
first developed by Tivo and ReplayTV are giving the homeowner control of the television and allowing them to watch
what they want, when they want. Phonex is already providing wireless link technology for both of these major digital
recorder companies and their affiliates through its powerline products.
Set-top-boxes are much easier to use than a PC and are beginning to provide far more than just entertainment. Today, in
addition to pay-per-view selection, the set-top-box has been targeted to provide applications of far greater
sophistication, including web browsing, MP3, video-on-demand, online shopping, games, home networking, satellite radio,
and home automation. The challenge will come as the technology within the set-top-box becomes so sophisticated that it
will demand very high data rate speeds to handle these high-end video and home networking applications. "Homeowners
will need solutions that can keep up with the complexity of this evolving market," explains Knab. "That's why Phonex
Broadband is intent on simplifying the use of set-top-boxes for these high-end applications by developing broadband
powerline networking technology." Having recently joined the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, where standards are being
adopted for the development of such broadband technologies, Phonex is now poised to meet the challenge of simplifying
set-top-box use by working with other powerline industry leaders to implement new technology. "This does not mean
these pioneer efforts won't have their speed bumps, but the set-top-box is here to stay and Phonex is ready to make
it easy for consumers to use through broadband products it is currently developing," says Knab.
The present set-top-box market has millions of installed units with tens of millions of units expected to be shipped
by the year 2003. The proliferation of interactive TV applications will further drive the growth of this market,
compelling consumers to purchase more set-top-box systems. "Now that companies like Microsoft have identified the
set-top-box as one of the control centers of the home, you will see significant investment dollars pouring into this
product category," says Knab. "While we have long recognized this industry's potential for expansion, even Phonex
management did not anticipate the explosive growth that has occurred worldwide within this market - we now predict
that the set-top-box will become as common as a TV set within a short ten years."
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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