Dumont Telephone Company chooses Hitachi for
Fiber-to-the-Home projects

ATLANTA , GA, June 5, 2006 – Hitachi Telecom (USA), Inc., today announced that Dumont Telephone Company, Dumont, Iowa, has selected Hitachi’s AMN1220 Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) platform for the delivery of triple play services in the city of Dumont and surrounding areas. Part of a seven-year plan by Dumont Telephone to provide fiber optic connectivity throughout the company’s service area, the initial deployment will begin this month, with about 100 subscribers with in the city of Dumont.

Future deployments will include the surrounding rural areas. Services will be for both residential and business applications.

Roger Kregel, Dumont Telephone General Manager, stated “We are pleased to be able to provide world-class communications services to our subscribers, today and in the future. Hitachi’s AMN1220 GPON system gives us the bandwidth we will need for future services such as high definition TV, as well as the ability to deliver our current cable TV services over fiber optic cable.”

“Hitachi is pleased to be selected by Dumont Telephone to provide our AMN1220 product family for their GPON project,” said Frank Banks, Hitachi Telecom vice president of sales. “We expect that Dumont will be among the first cities in the United States to offer commercial services based on full-rate GPON technology.”

Dumont Telephone Company is a locally owned stock held company in Dumont Iowa since 1902. They have 1,500 access lines. The Company provides voice, video, and data to the communities and surrounding areas of Dumont and Allison. The company also provides video in Bristow and Geneva and operates a PCS Wireless business that services the communities of Dumont, Allison, Aplington, Parkersburg, and New Hartford. The company operates under the direction of a seven member board of directors and eight employees.

About Hitachi’s AMN1220 Product Family

The AMN1220 FTTP platform is a family of high-performance GPON products that provide ultra high bandwidth communication services to residential, business and institutional subscribers using a single optical fiber direct to the subscriber’s premises. Compliant with ITU-T G.984 standards, the AMN1220 provides data rates of 2.488Gbps downstream and 1.244Gbps upstream. Standards compliance provides assurance that service providers will have maximum flexibility in implementing FTTP solutions as applications and services are added in the future. Legacy TDM services such as T1 are seamlessly handled in their native formats using GPON Encapsulation Mode (GEM) framing.

The AMN1220 consists of a centrally located Optical Line Terminal (OLT) connected via single-mode fiber optic cable to Optical Network Terminals (ONT) at the subscribers’ premises. The OLT is equipped with a hybrid Layer 2/3 + TDM switch fabric for flexible traffic management and consolidation. ONTs include the GST, a single family / small business unit, and the GMT, a configurable multi-dwelling/multi-business ONT. All ONTs can provide a Gigabit Ethernet line rate interface to the subscriber, enabling a wide range of business applications today and providing future proofing for both residential and business networks.

About Hitachi Telecom ( USA), Inc.

Hitachi Telecom (USA), Inc., a subsidiary of Hitachi America, Ltd., develops, manufactures and markets telecommunications equipment for the North American market. The company offers ITU-compliant ‘triple play’ systems for Fiber-to-the-Premises applications, and ultra high-speed optical networking equipment such as DWDM and SONET systems. For more information on Hitachi Telecom (USA), Inc., visit http://www.hitachitelecom.com.

Hitachi America, Ltd ., a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., markets and manufactures a broad range of electronics and semiconductors, and provides industrial equipment and services throughout North America. For more information on Hitachi America, visit http://www.hitachi.us.

Hitachi, Ltd ., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 356,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2005 (ended March 31, 2006) consolidated sales totaled 9,464 billion yen ($80.9 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at www.hitachi.com.

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