FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan 27, 2003

Loea 'Virtual' Fiber Used by ABC to Broadcast Elevated Distance
Shots of Super Bowl XXXVII

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Millions of viewers who watched the Super Bowl on January 26 also saw Loea Corporation's "virtual" fiber technology in action.

ABC Television employed Loea's point-to-point wireless communication link to transmit live remote HDTV pictures of the game, taken from a hill outside of San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, to the ABC production center at the stadium, about a half mile away. ABC piloted Loea's technology to broadcast the "elevated-distance" shots of the Super Bowl in part because of security restrictions involving use of the airspace over the stadium.

Loea's "virtual" fiber employs very high frequency radio waves operating at 71-76 gigahertz, the first commercial use of this high frequency spectrum approved by the FCC under a Special Temporary Authority. For the broadcast, a Loea antenna and an ABC high definition camera were placed on a hill, about a half mile from the stadium. A second Loea antenna inside the ABC compound linked the camera to ABC's production center.

Loea's wireless Super Bowl link operated at full 720P HDTV output speeds of 1.485 gigabits per second, the SMPTE-292 (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) standard for HDTV. This full-speed streaming capacity allowed ABC to transmit full bandwidth high definition pictures directly from the camera, without the typical half-second delay needed for data compression, nor having to use expensive data compression equipment, said Mike Strein, managing director of ABC Technology and Strategic Planning.
"Loea's virtual fiber provides the only free space communications that can stream high definition video reliably at full quality, without interference," said Lou Slaughter, Loea's chief executive officer. "We're thrilled to have worked with ABC to help facilitate this aspect of the Super Bowl broadcast."

Loea's high frequency radio waves take the form of narrow "pencil" beams that can also penetrate windows to transmit full duplex (back and forth) at 1.25 gigabits per second, which is Gigabit Ethernet Standard, the equivalent of 660 T1 lines or 1,000 DSL connections.

Loea's fiberless links offer "five-nines" reliability up to a mile and can be installed in a day at a fraction of the cost of fiber, Slaughter said. Other users piloting the company's virtual fiber include the Rudin Organization, a New York real estate firm that is testing the technology with the Lower Manhattan Telecom Users Working Group, as well as the University of Hawaii and the U.S. Navy.
Originally developed for the military, Loea's virtual fiber is approved for federal government use. In June 2002, the FCC began the rule-making process to license commercial use of the technology.


About Loea Corporation

Loea Corporation, with its principal office in Hawaii and with offices in California and Massachusetts, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trex Enterprises Corporation, which is based in San Diego, California. For more than 20 years, Trex has conducted research for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).