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U.S. Navy Selects Acterna's MTS-5100e; Acterna's Federal Division is Provider of Testing and Measuring for U.S. Navy's OTDR Requirements

Posted on: Thursday, 16 December 2004, 09:00 CST

Acterna today announced that its MTS-5100e Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) was selected by the U.S. Navy in a competitive bid for a fiber optic test instrument. The five-year contract, awarded to Acterna's Federal Division by the Naval Inventory Control Point (NAVICP), establishes Acterna as the sole provider of test and network management support for the U.S. Navy's OTDR requirements for the five year period.

According to Thomas Mullin, NAVICP's Technical Branch Head for General-Purpose Electronic Testing Equipment, "This five-year requirements contract not only allows ship, shore and DoD customers to receive their equipment in a premium delivery time of 60-90 days, but saves the Navy thousands of dollars through the competitive nature of the procurement."

The MTS-5100e OTDR provides the benefits of cost-effectiveness, an easy-to-use fault locator mode that can quickly locate breaks in the fiber, and meets all of the U.S. Navy's physical layer fiber optic testing needs for both multimode and single-mode fiber applications. Another distinct advantage to the MTS-5100e is its flexibility as it can be used in a field tactical environment, in design and engineering labs, as well as on board ships and submarines.

"Acterna has enjoyed a long history of delivering test and management solutions to support U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps communications requirements. With more than five years of OTDR business to date, the recent MTS-5100e award ensures that the deployment of fiber optic networks are backed by the most effective tools on the market," said Jim Coulter, director of Acterna's Federal Division. "The MTS-5100e offers unique benefits, including efficiency, quality, and accuracy, specifically designed to meet the needs of the government and military in a cost-effective way. The U.S. Navy is now able to continue to monitor, maintain and diagnose its fiber communications network infrastructure with confidence and reliability."

The contract includes three distinct Acterna packages: a multimode-only solution, a single mode-only solution, and a multimode/singlemode solution, including test cables and accessories. The MTS-5100e has two module slots which allow it to test 850/1300 nm multimode fiber and 1310/1550 nm single-mode fiber without the need to swap modules. The additional benefit to this design is that end users who purchase a single module MTS-5100e can do a field upgrade by ordering a second module from the contract at a later date when necessary.

About Acterna's MTS Family of Products

The Acterna MTS offers field technicians unprecedented levels of functionality in a lightweight, compact field instrument. The MTS family of testers is used by all major telecommunications operators, with more than 11,000 field-proven units deployed worldwide. The platform includes the MTS-5000 series, as well as the T-BERD 8000 and MTS-8000, released globally in October 2003 as the MTS-8000. Designed for field use in both outside plant and central office applications, the Acterna MTS family is the industry's most compact and cost-effective solution for optical network testing. In addition, the Acterna OTDR modules outperform the competition with a 1m dead zone (the minimal distance that two close connections can be identified and separated), in single mode and 1.5 m dead zone in multimode, making these modules ideal for short networks commonly available in U.S. Navy and other military networks.

About Acterna's Federal Division

Acterna's Federal Division has delivered tailored communications test and network management solutions to federal agencies for more than 25 years, enabling them to reduce cost, increase performance and more efficiently fulfill their mission requirements. As the federal government moves well into the 21st century, Acterna's rich history of testing leadership continues to support federal government clients in the face of new technical challenges, including building up emergency response communications infrastructure, ensuring information security, and maintaining robust military communications networks. Providing services and instruments that support a range of technologies from low-speed data communications circuits over copper and high-speed Optical Carrier (OC)-192 trunks over fiber to satellite communications, Acterna is the communications test partner of choice for several high-profile federal initiatives.

About Acterna

Acterna is the world's largest provider of communications test solutions for telecommunications and cable network operators. A trusted communications test partner for more than eight decades, Acterna offers an unmatched portfolio of award-winning instruments, systems, software, and services that help its customers reduce network costs while improving performance and reliability. Headquartered in Germantown, Md. -- with European and Asia-Pacific operations based in Eningen, Germany, and Hong Kong -- Acterna serves nearly every major communications service provider and equipment manufacturer around the world through a skilled sales and support organization in 31 countries. All Acterna company or product names mentioned in this press release are trademarks or registered trademarks of Acterna Inc. or one of its subsidiary companies.

About NAVICP

Rear Admiral Michael S. Roesner is the Commander of NAVICP. It is the largest field activity of the Naval Supply Systems Command. NAVICP procures, manages, and supplies spare parts for Naval aircraft, submarines and ships worldwide. NAVICP is responsible for over 400,000 items of supply, $21 billion of inventory and annual sales of $4.2 billion. It has two locations, one in the Lawncrest section of Northeast Philadelphia and the other in Mechanicsburg, just outside Harrisburg, PA.

Source: Business Wire

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