Spirent wins DoD network testing deal

A subsidiary of Spirent plc, West Sussex, United Kingdom, will help a U.S. Defense Department team assess the next version of the Internet protocol for military use, the company announced this week.

Commercial telecommunications carriers and the Defense Department are funding the project, said Benjamin Schultz, managing engineer for University of New Hampshire's InterOperability Lab. The lab manages the project along with the Joint Interoperability Testing Command.

Terms of Spirent's contract were not disclosed.

For the initiative, Spirent Communications Inc. will provide testing expertise, equipment, testing methodologies and training.

Called Moonv6, this project will test the Internet Protocol version 6 for interoperability and security issues. The Internet Engineering Task Force designed IPv6 to replace the current version of the Internet protocol, which is used to assign Internet hosts with addresses. IPv6 was designed to increase the number of usable addresses as well as answer long-standing security issues.

The Defense Information Systems Agency plans to use the IPv6 in the Defense Department's Global Information Grid by 2008.

Spirent has 4,500 employees and makes systems that test telecommunications equipment. Its subsidiary, Spirent Communications of Rockville, Md., provides performance analysis and service assurance systems.