As quarterly numbers continue to come in from network testing and monitoring companies, Viavi Solutions reported revenues up 11.9% year-over-year to $219.4 million, driven by strength in its network and service enablement unit and its optical, security and performance unit — however, the company didn’t quite hit the black for the quarter. Viavi’s net loss for the quarter was $8.7 million, compared to profits of $26 million in the same period last year.
During the quarter, Viavi bought Cobham’s AvComm and wireless test and measurement operations for $455 million. Oleg Khaykin, president and CEO of Viavi, said that the purchase is expected to add to earnings in Viavi’s next fiscal quarter and that the company is “excited about the growth opportunities in the emerging 5G wireless market and AvComm’s military, public safety and avionics test markets.” Viavi has already begun integrating the Cobham assets into its solution line-up, focusing on end-to-end 5G testing.
Other companies reporting this week included Netscout, which saw a significant drop in its revenues from $318.9 million in the year-ago quarter to $235.2 million in its most recent quarter. Service revenues were a higher percentage of overall revenues than product revenues, as compared to the same quarter last year. Net income was down to $16.8 million from $22.3 million in the year-ago period.
Anil Singhal, Netscout’s president and CEO, said in a statement that “despite the difficult market conditions in the service provider customer segment, we’ve seen good adoption of our software-based real-time information platform, which contributed to higher gross margins. In the enterprise customer segment, we are seeing increasing interest in some of our newest offerings that provide seamless workflows into infrastructure performance as well as greater application visibility across traditional data center, private and public clouds, and hybrid environments.
“We expect that orders for our next-generation, software-based instrumentation and analytic offerings will continue ramping over the coming quarters as we also introduce new capabilities that will enable us to address broader security and big data analytics requirements,” he added. The company also recently appointed two new independent directors to its board.
Teledyne Technologies had record first quarter sales of $695.6 million, up nearly 23% year-over-year. Profits jumped from $30.5 million during the first quarter of 2017 to $66.5 million in 2018’s first quarter. The company’s instrumentation business had net sales of $239 million for the quarter, up 2.7% year-over-year; Teledyne said that the sales increase was driven by both test and measurement instruments and the company’s environmental instrument sales.
InTest, which produces automated semiconductor testing equipment, reported net revenues of $18.9 million, up from $14.2 million during the same quarter last year. Net earnings were $400,000, down from $2.1 million during last year’s first quarter. InTest President and CEO James Pelrin said that the company “[continues] to benefit from the robust demand environment associated with the semiconductor industry, with automotive sensors, mobility technologies and IoT (Internet of Things) leading our semiconductor test business.” Non-semiconductor-related drivers for InTest included demand in telecom, automotive and aerospace and defense markets, he added.
In other test news:
-Dedicated Short-Range Communications for vehicle-to-everything communications may be in regulatory limbo as far as a mandate of the technology in new vehicles, but the technical ecosystem does seem to be making some steps forward. This week, Keysight Technologies signed a contract with Korean intelligent transportation company IT-Telecom to collaborate on a DSRC or V2X test solution. IT-Telecom specializes in DSRC and has protocol expertise and signaling modules for the technology.
Meanwhile, InterTek was selected as an official certification lab for the OmniAir Consortium’s DSRC certification program, which OmniAir claims is the world’s first such certification program for the technology. A DSRC plugfest will be held next week at InterTek’s facility in Plymouth, Mich. and the nearby American Center for Mobility proving grounds in Ypsilanti Township.
–GL Communications has added 911 call simulation and monitoring to its solution portfolio, supporting Centralized Automatic Message Accounting or CAMA, analog trunk systems for emergency calls over TDM or analog networks. The test capabilities are integrated in GL’s MAPS CAS Emulator and FXO FXS Emulator hardware and software.
–RootMetrics dug into some of its test data on the Atlanta market and found Verizon and T-Mobile US battling over speed versus reliability. The two carriers tied for RootMetrics’ overall performance and data performance award, with T-Mobile US winning the company’s highest spot in network speeds while Verizon took top honors in network reliability. In call performance, Sprint held its own, tying with Verizon the second consecutive report, RootMetrics noted. RootMetrics, which has tested the Atlanta area 15 times now, noted that since its last round of testing, both Verizon and AT&T have improved their network speeds. Verizon “saw a big jump in its median download speed from RootMetrics’ last report, increasing from 31.7 Mbps to 43.8 Mbps,” RootMetrics said, while AT&T’s median upload speed improved from 8.5 Mbps to 11.1 Mbps. RootMetrics said that the latest testing happened between March 26 and April 3, using off-the-shelf smartphones purchased at carrier stores, and was conducted at 251 indoor location and nearly 4,300 miles of drive-testing.
–New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering now has a cleanroom, a 2,300-square-foot, nearly-dust-free facility where the university intends to support research on advanced materials and micro- and nano-scale devices. The university said that the first teams from NYU scheduled to use the lab include biomedical, electrical and mechanical engineering, medical and physics researchers.
“The lab contains state-of-the-art microelectronics processing equipment and atomic force microscopy for a wide range of research activities including spintronics, nanoelectronics, biosensors, lab-on-a-chip technology, energy devices such as solar cells and batteries, biotechnology, microelectronics, and telecommunications,” NYU said.
