EXFO acquires Navtel Communications
-- Test & Measurement World, 4/7/2008 5:47:00 AM
EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering announced that it has acquired all the shares of Navtel Communications, a provider of Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) test solutions for network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) and network service provider (NSP) labs.
A privately held company in the Toronto area, Navtel specializes in testing next-generation IP networks that are increasingly combining wireline and wireless technologies. Its InterWatch platforms are fully scalable simulation and analysis test stations that can perform several critical tests—capacity, performance, stress, and load—on various network devices to assure their ability to perform under real-life, IP-based, multimedia traffic conditions.
IMS, which is being touted as the new technology that will merge the Internet with the telecom world, allows wireline and wireless carriers to use a common IP application system to deliver new multimedia services that can be combined with legacy services across a number of different access technologies. IMS has been developed to become the overlaying architecture that will enable the efficient management and deployment of quadruple (voice, video, data, and mobile) IP services.
Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, estimates that the IMS test and monitoring market will grow from an estimated $274.1 million in 2007 to $1.2 billion in 2013 for a compound annual growth rate of 27.9%. Navtel currently addresses approximately $130 million of this market.
“This acquisition fits strategically with our long-term plan to deliver strong growth in our protocol test business, which posted a compound annual growth rate of 64% in the last two years and continues to deliver solid growth at the mid-point of fiscal 2008,” said Germain Lamonde, EXFO’s Chairman, President, and CEO. “Navtel’s cutting-edge technology strengthens our offering for NEMs and NSP labs which, in turn, have a significant influence on product selections made by NSPs.”
“This acquisition also enables us to expand into the high-growth IMS and VoIP test markets, whose technologies are currently in their early stages,” Lamonde added. “We intend to leverage these technologies throughout their entire lifecycle, especially as they mature into portable test solutions for the NSP market in which EXFO is the world’s second-largest supplier. We also plan to take advantage of Navtel’s strong relationships with Tier-1 NEMs and leverage our own worldwide sales presence with NSPs to accelerate sales growth, while positively impacting earnings since Navtel’s software-intensive test solutions generate high gross margins.”
EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering, www.exfo.com and Navtel Communications, www.navtelcom.com.
