Anritsu this month is introducing a certification course for testing passive distributed antenna systems. The three-day course covers the use of handheld analyzers and includes testing and troubleshooting for components, as well as instruction in antenna placement that avoids passive intermodulation sources.
Anritsu said that the course will involve hands-on training with its equipment and is aimed at installers, DAS system test technicians, project managers, wireless carriers, field engineers and site managers.
Anritsu this week also announced that Samsung has chosen its MD8475A network simulator with its SmartStudio Manager software for automated testing of Samsung smartphones. Additionally, it released the first in a series of options for its handheld S820E Microwave Site Master: a vector network analyzer mode for the equipment that will allow it to “simultaneously measuring all four S-parameters of a two-port device in the field.”
Philip Belleau, senior product manager for the S820E, said that the VNA mode option brings “a true VNA instrument into the field where those difficult measurements need to be made,” adding that the measurement correlates well with Anritsu’s bench top VNA equipment. Anritsu said that no additional hardware or calibration is needed to take advantage of the new option, which is done by a software upgrade.
• JDSU’s board released a statement in response to hedge fund shareholder Sandell Asset Management, which has been urging the board to consider selling off its communications and commercial optical products company instead of spinning it off into a separate company, which is the strategy that JDSU has outlined thus far. Sandell has noted its arguments into the recent board election of Martin Kaplan, and protested the lack of inclusion of its CCOP sale proposal in the company’s proxy statement as well as accusing JDSU of timing its notice of the annual shareholder meeting so that Sandell was not able to nominate its own candidate to fill the board seat.
The board responded: “The JDSU Board of Directors remains committed to acting in the best interest of all shareholders and to strong corporate governance. Consistent with the board’s historical approach of regularly reviewing corporate governance best practices, and after discussions with many of the company’s shareholders both before and after the December 2014 Annual Meeting, the company undertook an evaluation of potential changes to the advance notice provisions of the Company’s bylaws. The board expects to finalize its decision on any such changes in this calendar quarter following additional shareholder outreach.
“As JDSU continues to execute on its previously announced separation, the board remains committed to evaluating all opportunities for additional or greater value creation.”
• Softbank Mobile tapped JDSU’s XSight solution for customer experience assurance to boost quality of experience on Softbank’s LTE network. The two companies said that after an “extensive” competitive trial process, JDSU’s solution for network monitoring and troubleshooting was chosen so that Softbank can optimize the scale and quality of experience of its LTE services.
• Test and measurement company EXFO reported its results for the most recent quarter ended Nov. 30. The company reported sales of $56.7 million, up from $56 million in the previous year’s first quarter. Bookings were down slightly year-over-year, to $54.2 million from $57.9 million. EXFO recorded $1.5 million in net earnings, compared to a loss of $700,000 in its 2014 fiscal first quarter; it also saw a sequential increase from the $1.2 million net earnings in its fiscal fourth quarter.
“Although market demand remained muted, we recorded year-over-year increases in sales, gross margin and earnings in the first quarter of fiscal 2015,” said Germain Lamonde, EXFO’s chairman, president and CEO, in a statement. “The telecom industry continued morphing from hardware-centric to SDN and NFV architectures and from fixed to mobile networking, while industry consolidation is ongoing in the background. I expect these elements to gradually turn into positive drivers for EXFO as fiscal 2015 unfolds, given our strong solutions offering.”
• Keysight Technologies released the latest version of its GoldenGate software for simulating, analyzing and verifying large-scale RFIC circuit design.
• Microwave Vision Group said it now has the first certified 3GPP testing lab in France.
• Vaunix launched a new 75 Ohm model for its LDA series of digital attenuators, which have up to 120 dB of programmable attenuation through 6,000 MHz. This particular model has an attenuation range up to 95 dB and frequency coverage between 10 and 1,000 MHz.
