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Test & Measurement: Keysight is Agilent’s testing spin-off

Agilent Technologies will name its spin-off electronic measurement company Keysight Technologies. The separation of the company’s test and measurement business is expected in early November. Keysight will be headquartered in Santa Rosa, Calif., and have about 9,500 employees in 30 countries.

Agilent has struggled with profits in recent quarters, and is splitting the company into two businesses: Keysight to focus on test and measurement, and the remaining Agilent operations will continue the company’s work in life sciences, diagnostics and applied markets.

Agilent also announced that AT4 Wireless has chosen its test equipment to provide certification testing for LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation. As part of the deal, AT4 is upgrading its T4000S series conformance test system from Agilent to support carrier aggregation, and the two companies have also extended their test system validation agreements; AT4 will continue to provide carrier-aggregation validation services to Agilent.

Agilent and AT4 have been working closely for some time; Agilent acquired AT4’s test system business in 2012, but AT4’s testing and certification services and IT service operations were not included in that deal.

Anritsu said it has successfully demonstrated LTE-A peak downlink throughput speeds of 300 megabits per second using carrier aggregation, working in conjunction with Qualcomm. The milestone was achieved with a Category 6 device based on Qualcomm’s Gobi 9×35 modem chipset and a network simulator using 20×20 megahertz carrier aggregation. Both the chipset and Anritsu’s MD8430A LTE simulator support carrier aggregation with two FDD-LTE or TDD-LTE component carriers up to 20 megahertz.

“This demonstration with Anritsu to showcase LTE Advanced Category 6 peak data rates is an important validation of our latest modem technology,” said Serge Willenegger, VP of product management for Qualcomm. “Gobi 9×35 is our fourth-generation of multi-mode LTE modems and is leading the mobile industry to the next phase of LTE-Advanced with support for up to 40 megahertz carrier aggregation on LTE FDD and TDD.”

JDSU has completed its acquisition of Network Instruments, which focuses on enterprise network and application performance management. The $200 million deal is expected to strengthen JDSU’s position in providing solutions to the enterprise, data center and cloud networking markets. Network Instruments’ 125 employees will become part of JDSU’s network and service enablement business segment.

ABOUT AUTHOR

Kelly Hill
Kelly Hill
Kelly reports on network test and measurement, as well as the use of big data and analytics. She first covered the wireless industry for RCR Wireless News in 2005, focusing on carriers and mobile virtual network operators, then took a few years’ hiatus and returned to RCR Wireless News to write about heterogeneous networks and network infrastructure. Kelly is an Ohio native with a masters degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where she focused on science writing and multimedia. She has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, The Oregonian and The Canton Repository. Follow her on Twitter: @khillrcr