EXFO beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profits, with net earnings of $4 million for the quarter, compared to $900,000 in the same period last year and $1.8 million in the previous quarter. The $4 million figure includes a foreign exchange gain of $1.1 million, with sales up slightly year-over-year to $53.6 million.
EXFO said at the halfway point of its fiscal year, sales are up 1% year-over-year and net earnings more than doubled during the same timeframe, from $2.4 million for the first half of fiscal 2015 to $5.7 million in the first half of fiscal 2016.
Germain Lamonde, chairman, president and CEO of EXFO, said in a statement the company performance so far this fiscal year “provides clear evidence that key transformations implemented last year are delivering robust results.” Lamonde went on to say EXFO expects to see continued growth in its physical and protocol product groups, as well as testing in fiber and 100G networks.
In other test news:
–Deviser Instruments launched a remote spectrum monitor. The DS1620 SpectrumProfiler remote spectrum monitoring system is aimed at mission-critical networks and public agencies, and can be deployed as a single device or as a network of devices to monitor spectrum issues in a particular geographic area, rather than interference hunting with hand-held devices. It also offers remote access.
Anritsu launched a similar product last year with remote spectrum monitoring capabilities, but according to Deviser, their solution offers self-positioning sensors that differentiate the product.
–Rohde & Schwarz this week signed an agreement with China Mobile Research to collaborate on “5G” research as a partner in the China Mobile 5G Innovation Center. The innovation center was launched at Mobile World Congress this year and plans to support a number of open labs for various areas of 5G-related research, including “Internet of Things” applications, connected car, industrial Internet and communications capabilities; early partners include Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and Qualcomm.
–Small Cell Forum and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute plan to hold their fourth small cell plugfest in Naples, Italy, in June at Telecom Italia’s labs to test interoperability and reliability in multivendor environments. The two-week testing event is open to members of ETSI and Small Cell Forum and will focus on self-organizing network features of small cells along with the impact of LTE-Advanced, traffic offloading and closed subscriber groups. Registration for the event is open and can be accessed here.
–CTIA’s 911 Location Technologies Test Bed selected LCC Design Services, part of Tech Mahindra, to be the independent administrator for its test bed for 911 location accuracy. CTIA established the test bed as an independent testing entity, and LCC will develop the process for evaluating indoor accuracy and whether technologies comply with Federal Communications Commission rules established in 2015 for indoor location, including vertical information. The test bed has testing events planned starting in May, with applications due by June 10.
–Anite’s Propsim F32 channel emulator supports a new multiple-input/multiple-output over-the-air testing protocol recommended by the Third Generation Partnership Project that relies on a multiprobe anaechoic chamber methodology for testing. Anite has been active both in advancing and supporting CTIA’s MIMO OTA testing regime as well as that of 3GPP.
–Anritsu is offering support for more LTE-A feature testing with a new software package for its MT8821C radio communications analyzer that includes testing for 4×4 MIMO testing with two component-carrier carrier aggregation, and five component-carrier carrier aggregation in the downlink in different configurations. Meanwhile, the company announced that as of the most recent PTCRB meeting last month, its ME7873LA RF/RRM conformance test system has the most PTCRB-validated test cases for three component-carrier carrier aggregation.
Anritsu also launched a signal analyzer this week as well as expanded fiber testing capabilities for data centers, metro and core networks on its optical transport tester.
–Keysight Technologies revamped its equipment renewal program, offering expanded opportunities for its customers to upgrade equipment.
–Ixia CEO Bethany Mayer has been recognized as one of the 50 most powerful women in technology by the National Diversity Council. Ixia this week also announced a partnership with Dynatrace that focuses on application performance assurance for the enterprise, by integrating Dynatrace’s data center user monitoring with Ixia’s IxFlow data feed for network visibility.
