MELVILLE, N.Y., 12 Feb. 2013. Harris Corp. engineers needed ground equipment to support a satellite network upgrade under the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) Alaskan Satellite Telecommunications Infrastructure (ASTI) program. They found their solution at Comtech EF Data Corp., a subsidiary of Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ:CMTL) in Tempe, Ariz.
Comtech EF Data won a buying agreement not to exceed $6.5 million for a range of Comtech EF Data ground equipment, including the CDM-625 Advanced Satellite Modem with DoubleTalk Carrier-in-Carrier, redundancy switches, and radio-frequency (RF) products for indoor and outdoor environments.
Harris, as prime contractor for the ASTI program, will replace and upgrade the existing satellite communications (SatCom) network that links the Alaskan Air Route Traffic Control Center in Anchorage with 64 FAA facilities throughout the region.
The ASTI program is intended to provide increased network performance and availability while reducing operating and maintenance costs for the FAA's Alaskan National Airspace System Interfacility Communication System. The infrastructure provides Alaska with 90 percent of its inter-facility communications for critical, essential, and routine air traffic control services supporting commercial aviation.
This mission-critical network will use Comtech EF Data’s CDM-625 Advanced Satellite Modem with DoubleTalk Carrier-in-Carrier. The CDM-625 combines the patented VersaFEC low-latency forward error correction with DoubleTalk Carrier-in-Carrier bandwidth compression. DoubleTalk Carrier-in-Carrier, based on Raytheon Applied Signal Technology's patented "Adaptive Cancellation" technology, allows transmit and receive carriers of a duplex link to share the same transponder space.
A variety of RF products are covered in the agreement, including indoor and outdoor frequency conversion and amplifier systems. The outdoor RF products include LPOD Block Up Converters, SPOD Solid State Power Amplifiers, and CSAT Transceivers. The indoor products include the UT and DT Frequency Converters, CPA Solid State Power Amplifiers, and MBT-5000 Up/Down Converter System.
