Spirent and Symmetricom to Address Critical Timing, Synchronization Issues Associated with Ethernet Mobile Backhaul

Spirent and Symmetricom to Address Critical Timing, Synchronization Issues Associated with Ethernet Mobile Backhaul

Spirent Joins the SyncWorld™ Ecosystem Program as a Communications Test & Measurement Partner

Sunnyvale, Calif. – July 28, 2011 — Spirent Communications plc (LSE: SPT), a global leader in test & measurement, and Symmetricom® Inc. (NASDAQ:SYMM), a worldwide leader in precision time and frequency technologies, today announced Spirent’s participation in Symmetricom’s SyncWorld™ Ecosystem Program. The program was launched earlier this year to support the precise timing and synchronization required as part of the transition to all-IP backhaul networks and 4G/LTE mobile platforms. It enables interoperability and cooperation among network equipment vendors, chip manufacturers and testing companies, focused on addressing the advanced networking requirements of service providers and enterprises.

Membership of the program aligns well with Spirent’s strategy of applying its industry-leading mobile backhaul testing solutions to help service providers and equipment vendors validate the performance of the most demanding applications on the mobile Internet and ensure a good quality of experience (QoE) for mobile subscribers. Spirent’s solutions validate packet timing protocols, including IEEE 1588v2 and Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE), and test physical timing characteristics by generating and measuring impairments such as wander and packet delay variation (PDV).

“Precise timing synchronization is essential to ensure quality of experience in all-IP/Ethernet mobile backhaul to support increasingly real-time-related traffic,” said Manish Gupta, vice president of Marketing at Symmetricom. “We are delighted to have Spirent join SyncWorld, with its complete portfolio of solutions to smoothly facilitate the transition to packet-based networks.”

As a partner in the SyncWorld™ Ecosystem program, Spirent is providing test methodologies to comprehensively test timing and synchronization across the mobile backhaul. These test methodologies bring together the nanosecond accuracies of Symmetricom’s TimeProvider® 5000 Grandmaster Clock and the performance testing capabilities of the Spirent TestCenter™ solution.

“Spirent remains committed to helping our customers make the complex transition to an all-IP/Ethernet mobile backhaul by delivering the most advanced solutions for accurately measuring the performance of these networks at scale,” said Rajesh Rajamani, senior product marketing manager at Spirent. “By forging strong partnerships such as this one we help ensure that our testing solutions characterize the accuracy of boundary clocks and transparent clocks that operate in a packet network.”

For more information on Symmetricom's SyncWorld™ Ecosystem program, visit http://www.symmetricom.com/syncworld.

For more information on Spirent’s mobile backhaul test solutions, visit http://www.spirent.com/Networks-and-Applications/Mobile_backhaul.aspx.