EDO to supply Marines with communications equipment

EDO Corp. won a contract from the Defense Department to provide communications equipment to the Marines, the company said. The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contact has a maximum value of $240 million.

EDO of New York will deliver as many as 476 transition switch modules, a family of next-generation communications equipment that can handle voice, data and video.

The modules, considered to be an important part of the Marines' implementation of network-centric warfare, will be designed to allocate bandwidth dynamically based on field communications needs.

Work is scheduled to be completed by September 2011. EDO officials said the company had already received its first delivery order, a $3.3 million payment to begin engineering and development.

Under a previous contract, EDO has been working on the Marines' Joint Enhanced Core Communication System, which will serve as a mobile communications hub that connects with the transition switch modules to give Marines access to the network

"Integrated battlefield communications is a critical need for our military customers," James Smith, EDO's chief executive officer, said in a statement. "We have been focusing on increasing our capabilities across the full C4I spectrum."

With total 2003 revenue of $460.7 million, EDO ranked No. 50 on Washington Technology's 2004 Top 100 list, which measures federal contracting revenue. The company pulled in about $137 million in prime IT contracting revenue last year.