German-based Dekra, which specializes in safety and certification, has acquired Spanish testing company AT4 Wireless to boost its offerings for “Internet of Things” testing.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. AT4 has labs in the U.S., Spain, Chile and Taiwan and nearly 300 employees; it is headquartered in Málaga, Spain. It offers testing services that include device acceptance, field and interoperability testing.
“With this acquisition, Dekra is preparing itself for the challenges of the Internet of Things,” said Stefan Kölbl, chairman of the management board of Dekra, in a statement. “Vehicles, machines and consumer goods are increasingly connected and communicating by means of wireless transmission methods, of which the safety, performance and security must be ensured. The growth in expertise thanks to AT4 wireless constitutes a major step for Dekra on our way to becoming a global partner for a safer world.”
Dekra noted that this is its third transaction this year in product testing, to strengthen its offerings in testing for consumer and automotive electronics; it bought a Taiwanese company and announced a joint venture in Taiwan earlier this year.
– The sale of Elektrobit’s brand and automotive unit to Continental AG was completed yesterday, and the company moves forward as Bittium as announced earlier this year. Bittium released its strategic guidelines and outlook for the rest of the year that in general stated that net sales will grow, and its operating profits for its wireless segment will be at or above its prior-year level.
– Industry group oneM2M, which has partnerships with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) for standards for machine-to-machine and “Internet of Things” communications, will be holding its first interoperability testing event in France this fall. According to oneM2M, the event’s focus is to verify “primitive interoperability” as defined in its specifications, as well as checking end-to-end functionality on certain interfaces. More information, including registration information, is here.
– GL Communications has released a new software update for its T1/E1 emulation and analysis solutions.
– Keysight Technologies added new Wi-Fi and IoT-related testing capabilities to its EXM test set with support for 802.11ah and 802.11af, announced four new options for its modular M9290A CXA-m PXIe signal analyzer, and also now has a new atomic force microscope that can be used in electronics characterization.
– Tektronix has been beefing up its support for 4K video, both through a software update for its Sentry video quality monitors as well as by joining the TICO Alliance that supports the TICO compression technology for use in 4K video. Charlie Dunn, general manager for Tektronix’s video product line, said in a statement that TICO “effectively balances quality, bit rate and latency to keep data rates for 4K content below 10G.”
Meanwhile, the company’s WFM8300 waveform monitor, which is a comprehensive monitoring and measurement offering for 4K formats, was recognized as a product of the year by technology website Cable.TMCnet.com.
– While the U.S. women’s soccer team heads to the finals in World Cup soccer, Accedian has been monitoring mobile network performance at the 2015 Copa América event in Chile, sponsored by FIFA, played in seven different cities across the country through July 4.
Accedian said that its Passport professional services team also will be providing similar mobile network monitoring for events over the next few years that include the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil, 2018 Winter Olympics in Seoul, and the 2020 Winter Olympics in Tokyo — the latter two expected to be the first large-scale public events with 5G technology in play.
