Globecomm Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: GCOM) has announced the U.S. Army has exercised a $2.3 million contract option for the continued production of the Joint IP Modem (JIPM). On November, 12, 2007, the Company announced that it had been awarded a contract from the U.S. Army’s Communications—Electronic Life Cycle Management Command under the Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems Project Manager Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems’ World Wide Satellite Systems program to provide the JIPM. The contract was initially valued at $9.9 million and included multiple options that if fully exercised over the next 16 months would value the contract at $87 million. The exercise of this option now brings the base contract to $17.7 million, with $69.3 million of options remaining over the next 16 months.

Globecomm is the prime contractor for the JIPM effort, providing program and contract management. Under subcontract to Globecomm, ViaSat Inc. (Nasdaq:VSAT) is responsible for the network system and modem design, including the integration of DVB-S2/DVB-RCS open standard IP technology. The goal of the JIPM effort is to leverage commercial technology to the maximum extent possible, while providing an open-standard based approach, which can form the basis of interoperability for military users. Pursuant to the contract, the JIPM network-centric IP modem will be the DoD standard network IP modem for use on military and commercial satellites to provide demand-based satellite communication transport services to the warfighter. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Program Executive Office for SATCOM, Teleport, and Services manages the JIPM initiative. DISA will field the Joint IP SATCOM Modem in the DoD Teleport Generation 2 rollout.