In March of this year, Comtech made public our decision to donate a number of COMET troposcatter systems at the request of the Ukrainian Government. The application, and need, was obvious: Comtech had been working closely with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense since 2017 to help the country modernize its communications infrastructure. While we were in the process of finalizing our plans to deliver COMET systems to the country in February, the Russian Army advanced across the country’s borders and – understandably – Ukraine’s defense priorities immediately shifted to immediate needs, namely, weapons and ammunition.
Still, there is no greater advantage in conflict than good information, and we knew Ukraine would need a secure and reliable way to connect its soldiers (and, leaders) to one another, regardless of the operating environment. And so, when the Ukrainian Government asked for our help, we were proud to be able to donate a pair of our beyond line-of-sight communications terminals to the Ukrainian Military in support of the defense of their country.
Today, we’re equally proud to announce we’re continuing our support for Ukraine, having just been awarded a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Contract (press release) for both 80 additional COMET terminals, as well as more than a dozen specially-designed CS67PLUS troposcatter radio upgrade kits that will allow Ukraine to bring its legacy Soviet-era troposcatter equipment up to modern standards.
This equipment will be immediately valuable to Ukraine: our prior work with the government means our gear has been previously certified for use by the Ukrainian military and can be fielded with training provided by both Comtech and current operators. Because we design our systems with interoperability in mind, Comtech’s feature-rich terminals can easily be linked with other Comtech tactical, mobile, and fixed systems to provide a robust, comprehensive Beyond Line-of-Sight communications solution that will be used to enhance the Ukrainian Military’s existing communications capabilities.
Ukraine will also benefit from state-of-the-art radio technology contained in our CS67PLUS troposcatter radio, which includes:
- The only software-defined troposcatter radio available on the market
- The highest data throughput capacity of any troposcatter radio or modem on the market (up to 210 megabits per second) – meaning more data gets to the people who need it, faster.
- Adaptive Coding Modulation (ACM) technology that continuously selects the best modulation and error correction coding scheme based upon troposcatter link conditions, to continuously provide maximum throughput and link availability
- Comtech’s proprietary direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) waveform technology, which reduces interference and allows operation at or below the noise floor – making our data links extremely difficult to jam or detect.
Simply put, Comtech’s troposcatter offerings provide the U.S. and our allies with the capability to communicate reliably, securely, and at scale, right to the absolute tactical edge of the battlefield. The best-in-class technologies offered by our CS67PLUS troposcatter radios provide a crucial advantage to our customers, in environments where even the smallest advantage can make a huge difference.
Finally, while our equipment is more than capable of performing in battle, it has applications that go well beyond military and tactical, and include disaster recovery, emergency communications restoration, and any imaginable circumstance, commercial or governmental, where connectivity is absolutely crucial.
We’ll keep our investors updated on contract wins as we earn them.
Given the demonstrated capabilities of our troposcatter systems, we’re optimistic we’ll have more to report going forward.
