Highwinds Streams Live Inaugural Coverage to Its Largest Audience to Date

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Inauguration Video Delivery Achieves 310 Gbps

WINTER PARK, Fla. - Jan. 21, 2009Highwinds Network Group, Inc., a multi-platform IP services and content distribution provider, today announced that its content delivery network (CDN) successfully streamed live coverage of yesterday's historic Presidential Inauguration to global online viewers. The number of concurrent viewers watching live video streams over the Highwinds CDN reached its peak at more than 625,000 and 310 Gbps of bandwidth during the swearing-in ceremony of our nation's 44th President, Barack Obama. Highwinds worked closely with its customer, one of the largest names in news and broadcast media, and partners Octoshape and Adobe to deliver exceptional user experiences for a global audience watching the events online. The all-day live inaugural coverage, provided by Highwinds' customer and other news outlets around the world, is sure to set records for the largest-ever online audience for live streaming viewership in the history of the Internet.

"With the inauguration held during the workday, we fully expected a massive crowd of online viewers spanning the globe. The testing and capacity planning for an event of this magnitude began shortly after the election," said George Antoniou, vice president of CDN operations at Highwinds. "We did everything possible to ensure high-quality live video delivery for all viewers, knowing that the total number of concurrent viewers could be our highest to date."

The Highwinds CDN was purpose-built to support the streaming of live events and deliver the best in network reliability, flexibility and scalability. With bandwidth capacity and speeds found in only a handful of today's CDNs, Highwinds was able to support an event of this scale through its own advanced technical capabilities and those of its partners. The streams were continuously monitored by Highwinds' network operations team throughout the day yesterday, and because of their real-time command and control over the network, Highwinds was able to react and respond quickly to spikes in volume and accommodate their largest-ever number of users.

"Yesterday was indisputably a day of great historical reference for our nation, and we were honored to be playing a role in sharing history in the making with a massive online audience," said Steve Miller, president and CEO of Highwinds. "I believe it was also an important day in the history of the Internet, a day that resulted in what was very likely the largest live broadband audience ever. The level of performance we achieved over our network yesterday validates our position as a top-tier CDN and is a tribute to our operations team. I consider this a great win for the industry and for all who were involved in assuring that the crowds of online viewers could witness the inaugural events as they unfolded."

Highwinds' live delivery platform delivered high-quality streams to the vast online audience with technology from Octoshape and Adobe that created the best possible user experience. The Adobe� Flash� Platform is the de facto standard for delivering breakthrough web applications, interactive content and video on the Internet. The Adobe Flash Platform offered the advanced Octoshape technology through a plug-in that enhances the user experience through its simplified installation process and the seamless integration of leading technologies. As a result, viewers watching the inaugural events online were able to view the highest quality live video streamed over the Highwinds CDN and via peers utilizing the Octoshape technology.

"It is a privilege to provide the technology platform used by major broadcasters who delivered this historic event to millions of online viewers," said Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager of dynamic media for Adobe. "We architected the Adobe Flash Platform to support events of this scale, and we appreciate the efforts of Highwinds to reliably deliver live streaming events around the globe."

About Highwinds Network Group, Inc.

Highwinds is a leader in multi-platform IP services, file replication, and content delivery software and services. Since 2002, Highwinds has provided for the advancement of a variety of technologies - including messaging bus architecture, network management, distributed file systems and content routing methods. The Highwinds CDN leverages the company's high-performance RollingThunder� network and user-friendly StrikeTracker� media manager and reporting dashboard to globally deliver content, videos, live events and other media. It sets the pace among content delivery networks by offering advantages in data center peering, real-time analytics, instant account provisioning, complete content control and massive scalability. Highwinds is headquartered in Winter Park, Fla., and maintains 23 data centers throughout North America and Europe. For more information, please visitwww.highwinds.com.

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