AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, December 1, 2004 - This month UPC Nederland, working closely with Cisco Systems, is announcing the start of field trials in Almere with the goal of offering Internet services with download speeds of 30 Mbps,. For this purpose, UPC recently replaced the cable modems of approximately 300 subscribers in Almere.

At these speeds, an average DVD-movie of 7GB can be downloaded in half an hour. With a 1 Mbps cable or ADSL subscription it would take 16 hours. Next year UPC aims to run a trial in Amsterdam with speeds as high as 50 Mbps. Both trials aim to show that the company's fiber-optic cable network is ready to meet future demands for high-speed Internet connections.

UPC is deploying Cisco technology throughout its network in the Netherlands including Cisco Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTS) with Broadband Processing Engine (BPE), which are helping UPC to offer higher speed and higher quality broadband cable services to its subscribers. The new Cisco EURO-DOCSIS 2.0 compliant and PacketCable 1.1 qualified technology will help UPC to improve overall bandwidth availability and increase its signal quality and reliability while avoiding the expense of replacing existing cable infrastructure in the last mile.

"Cisco has continued to support the development of the cable operator market through ongoing technology investments. The UPC Nederland trial demonstrates how Cisco can help cable operators to gain a competitive edge in the broadband market through upgrading existing network infrastructures," said Enrico Deluchi, Managing Director, EMEA Business Development and Marketing, Service Provider Wireline, Cisco Systems. "By adding more processing power and intelligence at the network edge, operators can achieve significant improvements in network capacity and management capabilities to support the delivery of advanced IP services."

Diedrik Karsten, Managing Director of UPC Nederland adds: "Almere is a very important city in our footprint, where we are showing the capabilities of our future proof Broadband To The Home fiber network. We are not only offering citizens the best of our Triple Play services (television, Internet and telephony), but also making Almere the first city in The Netherlands where we test Internet speeds of up to 30 Mbps. With these ever-increasing Internet speeds, we expect to be at the forefront of the market evolution of the Internet".

For 300 UPC subscribers in the Verzetswijk district of Almere, as well as in the Danswijk, Bouwmeesterbuurt and Schilderswijk districts, UPC has already tested a 8 Mbps symmetrical bi-directional broadband service. This month, UPC will set the cable modems of the same subscribers to 30 Mbps (for downloads) and 1 Mbps (for uploads). Various other speeds will be tested as well. Each stage will be completed with an extensive evaluation procedure before the start of the next stage. Customers will not be inconvenienced in any way and be kept up to date with regular progress reports.