SPX Communication Technologies: Supporting customers with specialized technology capabilities across the RF Spectrum

Heightened geopolitical and social tensions, increasing conflict complexity, and growing threats to national, government and civilian security, are posing new challenges to nations worldwide.

In response, defense budgets are broadly increasing. And readily available, low-cost commercial radio frequency (RF) solutions are driving the need to monitor and control the RF spectrum to keep pace with evolving threats.

Against this backdrop, at SPX Communication Technologies, we’re leading the innovation of specialized RF spectrum technologies. These enable the global defense market to detect, defeat and monitor RF signals for communications intelligence (COMINT) and counter unmanned aerial systems (counter-UAS).

We’re also advancing our portfolio of Tactical Data Link solutions. These enable the secure and reliable transfer of large volumes of mission-critical data between enabled aircraft and ground teams, and over long distances for airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).

SPX Communication Technologies was established in 2021 following the union of TCI and Enterprise Control Systems (ECS), combining over ten decades of experience in the RF industry. While both areas of the business continue to excel in their fields, the team has come together to deliver our first joint system offering, BLACKTALON.

BLACKTALON is a world-class fully integrated, customizable counter-UAS system designed to detect, defeat and track hostile UAS – already operationally proven with multiple customers.

In addition to offering capabilities for the global defense and security markets, we offer real-time Spectrum Monitoring solutions for telecommunication regulatory authorities.

Ultimately, whether it’s enabling data exchange, RF monitoring or assisting in the defeat of airborne threats, we work closely with customers to address their requirements and provide them with the key technology and training.

Customers at the core

Responsive innovation is possible because our strategy is rooted in listening to the customer. We prioritize understanding their needs and enhancing the customer experience.

Our team regularly meets with customers from across the world to learn about their challenges, how their requirements are evolving, and to make sure we understand the problems they’re trying to solve from their perspective.

We also closely follow geopolitical trends and consider how they affect our markets. This allows us to anticipate and adapt to changes in the landscape that may impact our operations, supply chain and market opportunities.

By putting the customer's voice first and understanding the macro trends, we can align our business strategy to address the headwinds and capitalize on the tailwinds. It informs our product development and innovation decisions so we effectively support our customers and grow the business sustainably.

This is our north star, and we remain focused on delivering our strategy. At the same time, we understand we have to constantly review and assess the trends and issues and be ready to adapt and evolve as the world and our customers demand.

In this context, continuous improvement of internal processes allows us to leverage our resources from both sides of the Atlantic – TCI in the US and ECS in the UK – to be more efficient and responsive for our customers. It’s about remaining focused and aligned on our common business goals, constantly monitoring opportunities for improvement, and taking action whether it be rapid innovation, internal process improvements or operational efficiency.

Prioritizing partners

In addition to selling to countries directly, we’re also focusing efforts on expanding our global partner network. Having partners on the ground in our target nations enables us to respond quickly to customer needs, deliver products faster, and have an essential presence in locations we can’t physically reach.

We’re optimizing the supply chain, for example, by setting up repair and inventory depots across several nations. These enable in-country partners to deliver support and first-line maintenance to the highest standard at the exact moment it's needed.

We have a designated Customer Support service that provides the highest level of training and support for our partners. This brings extensive local knowledge and expertise that is valuable to our customers and to us as a business.

A recent example is our extended partnership with Depicon, which grants the Belgium-based business development company exclusive rights to offer our Tactical Data Link portfolio to aerospace and defense organizations in the Benelux region. This marks a key milestone since our collaboration began in 2017 with a representative agreement covering multiple regions.

Looking ahead

There’s growing demand, especially from security, search and rescue, border and police forces, to gather and transmit more data from a wide range of sensors – beyond video – from the air to the ground and between aircrafts. This means we’ll continue investing in the next generation of Data Links to allow data to reach teams on the ground and in the air.

The counter-UAS market continues to evolve fast and there’s no silver bullet for the detection and defeat of the vast array of threats that exist. Our efforts here are focused on keeping pace with the threat, as hostile UAS get smaller and more intelligent, through our expandable and flexible solutions.

We’re also starting to deploy technology like big data and artificial intelligence (AI) across all our capabilities to automate processes and provide deeper analytics to mission-critical information across land, sea, and air domains.

Beyond technological innovation, we aim to continue improving efficiency in all processes and procedures, maintaining an open dialogue with customers and across the business, and ensuring we’re always one step ahead.