Acterna Adds Return Loss Meter to Line of Widely Deployed Optical Handheld Field Instruments; New ORL-55 handheld part of product line that includes testers for FTTx/PON, Gigabit Ethernet and 40Gbps.

GERMANTOWN, Md. & CHICAGO -- Acterna, the leader in test and management solutions for consumer and business broadband communications, today announced the addition of a handheld return loss meter, the Acterna ORL-55, to its industry-leading optical field instruments, the SMART optical handhelds. The ORL-55 and full range of SMART handhelds are being showcased in Chicago this week at SuperComm 2005, booth 43021.

More than 70,000 previous-generation units from Acterna's optical handhelds platform are currently in the field, making it one of the most widely deployed handheld test instruments in the industry. Acterna's SMART product line, offering the industry's best performance in terms of accuracy, ease-of-use and durability includes power meters, optical attenuators, laser sources, loss test sets and return loss meters.

The new ORL-55 SMART Optical Return Loss Meter is a high-performance, easy-to-use instrument for the field as well as for lab and production. It allows customers to use two or three lasers as well as high precision fiber couplers to test reflected signals. The instrument supports three modes with its "one button" test feature: return loss meter, optical power/loss meter and laser source. Return loss is measured at up to three wavelengths simultaneously by using sophisticated digital signal processing. With its USB interface, the ORL-55 can be networked with other Acterna optical handheld instruments (such as the OLC-65, OLP-55, and OLS-55) to establish an optical measurement system for lab or production. The ORL-55 also has an internal memory that can store more than 1,000 results.

"As with all of our SMART optical handhelds, the ORL-55 helps maintain our aggressive strategy to provide the market with universal handheld tools for the entire network lifecycle - from the lab to the deployment and maintenance of optical networks and systems," said Enzo di Luigi, general manager for Acterna's Fiber Optics and Systems. "Optical return loss is a fundamental test process in the deployment of FTTx and PONs, and the ORL-55 is developed to be future-proof while meeting our customers' requirements today."

The SMART handhelds consolidate Acterna's well-known optical handheld testers and offer multiple industry firsts, including: a USB interface, allowing for remote control as well as easy report generation and analysis via laptop/desktop; potentially substantial calibration cost savings (a three year calibration interval is recommended); and a unique power supply management system that uses either standard dry or rechargeable batteries, offering both fast charging times and the longest battery lifetime in its class. The battery can be charged using any 12-volt power source, including a vehicle cigarette lighter.

Acterna's SMART optical handhelds offer a variety of additional features that set them apart from all other optical handheld devices in their class, including: an extended number of calibration wavelengths that provide the highest-performance range in the industry; the industry's most rugged design; the SMARTStar graphical user interface (GUI) for fast, easy and straightforward operation; traceable measurements to international standards for confidence in accuracy; quick-start operation (no warm up required, thus decreasing testing times); and TWINtest and TRIPLEtest (simultaneous measurements at either two or three wavelengths, which significantly decreases testing times).

About Acterna's SMART Optical Handheld Testers

Anticipating the present and future requirements of the optical handheld market, Acterna's new line of SMART optical handhelds are designed for industry trends. They are a powerful, low-cost solution for FTTx/PON, DWDM, CWDM, 40Gbps, Ethernet, and Gigabit Ethernet applications (both multimode and singlemode). The new SMART optical handhelds maintain all existing functions of today's high-performance Acterna optical handhelds and are identified by simple product names: OLA (variable optical attenuator), OLP (optical power meter), OLS (optical light source), OLT (optical loss test set), OMK (optical measurement kit), and ORL (optical return loss meter).

About Acterna

Acterna is the world's largest provider of communications test solutions for telecommunications and cable network operators. A trusted communications test partner for more than eight decades, Acterna offers an unmatched portfolio of award-winning instruments, systems, software and services that help its customers reduce network costs while improving performance and reliability. Headquartered in Germantown, Maryland, USA - with European and Asia-Pacific operations based in Eningen, Germany and Hong Kong - Acterna serves nearly every major communications service provider and equipment manufacturer around the world through a skilled sales and support organization in 31 countries.

All Acterna company or product names mentioned in this press release are trademarks or registered trademarks of Acterna Inc. or one of its subsidiary companies.