Irvine, Calif.-based Infinite Electronics has acquired a number of well-known radio frequency brands from Smiths Group. Infinite purchased Smiths Interconnect’s Microwave Telecoms operations, which includes test equipment company Kaelus, RF protection equipment company PolyPhaser, surge protection company Transtector Systems and microwave antenna producer RadioWaves.
Infinite is an operational holding company that provides back-office support and management for its brands, which include Pasternack, L-Com and Fairview Microwave, among others. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. CEO Terry Jarnigan said in a statement that the acquisition “extends Infinite Electronics existing presence in the global telecommunications marketplace by broadening the products, technologies and services Infinite can collectively offer the telecom customer, while also providing attractive sourcing and manufacturing synergies.”
Meanwhile, French calibration lab network Trescal continued its streak of acquisitions with the purchase of Virginia-based calibration company Acucal, which services Virginia, North Carolina, Arizona and Hawaii with four labs and a fleet of half a dozen mobile labs with a particular focus in RF/microwave and electrical DC/low power.
This is Trescal’s fifth acquisition this year and 22nd since the company was taken over by investment company Ardian in mid-2013. Its deals thus far in 2017 include the purchase of small calibration companies in Germany, Canada and two others in the U.S.: Precision Metrology and Exphil Calibration. The Acucal purchase brings Trescal’s network in the U.S. to 20 labs and about 450 employees.
In other test news this week:
–EXFO announced plans to restructure its test line-up and workforce to move away from passive monitoring to active solutions and analytics. EXFO said that passive wireless monitoring accounted for less than 5% of its total sales, and that it will make staff reductions that affect about 5% of its global workforce.
The restructuring is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of the company’s fiscal 2017 and generate cost savings of about $8 million as well as one-time costs of about $4 million.
Phillippe Morin, CEO of EXFO, said in a statement that the company has seen good revenue growth but “needed to address an underachieving product line within our monitoring solutions portfolio. By sharpening our focus on testing, active service assurance, fiber monitoring and analytics, we will better meet growing customer requirements for real-time visibility on virtualized and hybrid networks and, in the process, bolster profitability.”
–Teledyne LeCroy is partnering with Spirent Communications to expand cellular test offerings for the connected car at its Automotive Technology Center in Farmington Hill, MI. Spirent is creating a “virtual test track” for vehicles to test wireless offerings such as Wi-Fi hot spots, streaming media and emergency calling while moving between 3G and LTE coverage under various conditions.
David Bean, GM for Teledyne LeCroy’s consumer protocol group, said in a statement that “customers have been telling us how much drive testing is costing during development and with each software change,” said David Bean, General Manager of . “Now they can get a more repeatable and reliable result at a fraction of the cost.”
Teledyne LeCroy also launched an alternative software interface for its PCI Express protocol analyzer line. Meanwhile, parent company Teledyne reported its results this week, which included first quarter sales of $566.1 milion, up 6.7% year-over-year. Net income, however, was down 21.8% to $30.5 million, due to costs related to Teledyne’s acquisition of e2v Technologies, which focuses on high-performance sensors and semiconductors. Instrumentation revenues were up 4.1% to $232.8 million, and the company noted that test and measurement equipment sales were up $5.7 million year-over-year.
–NetScout signed a deal to provide service assurance monitoring for Vodafone Group in 13 European countries. Read the full story here.
–Viavi Solutions has expanded its internet of things support, adding a signal analysis for narrowband internet of things licensing option to its CellAdvisor Base Station Analyzer. Viavi said that it believes this is the first offering of its kind and has already been used in trials with Tier-1 global service providers to support NB-IoT testing for overlay IoT infrastructure. The solution supports measurement of impacts that the NB-IoT signal may have on LTE, as well as analysis of signal power levels, interference management and confirmation of whether the signal has the needed reach and coverage to serve IoT devices within the area under consideration.
Viavi also reported its third fiscal quarter results, garnering net revenue of $196 million and profits of $26 million for the quarter, down from net revenue of $206.5 million and net income of $28.8 million in the year-ago period. Network enablement revenues accounted for $103.4 million for the quarter, down 11% year-over-year. Service enablement revenues were down about 30% year-over-year to $28.7 million, but Viavi’s optical security and performance segment generated $63.9 million, up about 30% from the same period last year. President and CEO Oleg Khaykin said that network and service enablement revenues were “impacted by weaker service provider and enterprise spend.” Viavi expects to complete most of the restructuring of its service enablement business this quarter.
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