Spirent

Spirent Communications plc is a multinational telecommunications testing company headquartered in Crawley, West Sussex, in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

History

The company was founded by Jack Bowthorpe in 1936 as Goodliffe Electric Supplies. In 1949 it changed its name to Bowthorpe. It acquired Optima Electronics in 1987 and disposed of its defence businesses in 1990. The company's electronics business grew rapidly during the dot-com boom of the 1990s, with the 1997 purchase of businesses such as Adtech, a digital test equipment concern based in Hawaii, and the company was a member of the FTSE 100 index from time to time. It disposed of its automotive industry businesses in 1999, the same year that it bought Netcom Systems, a US telecoms testing business which makes network equipment testers, and DLS, a Canadian telecoms testing business. In 2000 it also bought Hekimian, a major Operations Support Systems business,Zarak Systems, another communications software business and Net-Hopper, an access systems specialist.