America's Emergency Network Goes Live in Florida for Busy Hurricane Season

GERMANTOWN, Md., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband satellite networks and services, today announced that America's Emergency Network, Inc. (AEN), a satellite-based emergency communications system powered by the nationwide HughesNet broadband satellite service, has been successfully streaming real-time news briefings from numerous state and local operations centers since the onset of the hurricane season. Beginning with Tropical Storm Fay, the system has been up and running for subsequent Hurricanes Hannah, Gustav, and Ike.

Based inFlorida, AEN's service provides residents with access to news, preparedness, and recovery advisories issued by the governor and other state officials by streaming live, storm-related briefings from Florida's Division of Emergency Management inTallahassee and theVillage of Islamorada, and from operations centers inMiami-Dade,Broward,Brevard,Duval, andPutnam counties. Additionally, the service works with majorFlorida newspapers to provide convenient, free public access to the video streams over their Web sites.

"Emergency managers, the media, and the general public now have seen first-hand the importance of AEN's communications system, the void it fills, and the service it provides," said Bryan Norcross, president and chief executive officer of America's Emergency Network. "Utilizing the HughesNet satellite backbone ensures that our system remains functional even when terrestrial phone lines, cable, and mobile service are knocked out."

"During a disaster, timely communications are of the essence," said Mike Cook, senior vice president at Hughes. "In particular after a regional disaster, many smaller cities, counties, and towns cannot get critical messages out to their residents. Through AEN and HughesNet, local governments are now able to rapidly disseminate pertinent information to the community, providing them with critical, often life-saving real-time updates."

AEN's system is able to transmit on-demand, up to three simultaneous, video streams originating from any location inFlorida, either in high-resolution for television outlets or medium-resolution for broad public distribution. This high performance, video-on-demand capability is enabled by SPACEWAY(TM) 3, the world's first commercial satellite with on-board switching and routing. Optimized for high-speed processing of large data volumes, SPACEWAY 3 began operation in the US serving HughesNet customers in April of 2008.

About America's Emergency Network

America's Emergency Network was designed by Bryan Norcross, formerly the CBS network hurricane analyst, and Max Mayfield, the former Director of the National Hurricane Center. AEN's goal is to be sure that every emergency manager, whether from a large county or a small town, has an outlet to reach the public, the media, and other government officials. The satellite-based AEN system is designed to continue to work after a disaster when the power lines, phone lines, cell phone towers, and terrestrial internet systems are knocked out.

About Hughes Network Systems

Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) is the global leader in providing broadband satellite networks and services for large enterprises, governments, small businesses, and consumers. HughesNet(R) encompasses all broadband solutions and managed services from Hughes, bridging the best of satellite and terrestrial technologies. Its broadband satellite products are based on global standards approved by the TIA, ETSI and ITU standards organizations, including IPoS, RSM-A, and GMR-1. To date, Hughes has shipped more than 1.5 million systems to customers in over 100 countries.

Headquartered outsideWashington, D.C., inGermantown, Maryland, USA, Hughes maintains sales and support offices worldwide. Hughes is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: HUGH). For additional information, please visit http://www.hughes.com.

(C)2008 Hughes Network Systems, LLC. Hughes, HughesNet, and SPACEWAY are trademarks of Hughes Network Systems, LLC.

SOURCE Hughes Network Systems, LLC

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