New Atlanta Air Traffic Control Tower Is Equipped with the FAA's Most Modern and Cost-Effective Telecom Services

Harris Corporation today announced that Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport's new 398-foot air traffic control (ATC) tower represents the most recent milestone in the continuing rollout of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) program. The FTI network supports the new tower with more than 120 telecommunication services, including controller-to-pilot voice and flight-critical data services.

The FTI program is upgrading communications circuits at more than 4,400 FAA facilities nationwide, creating a modern telecommunications network that will provide unparalleled safety, security, and reliability at significantly reduced operating costs. The FTI program is expected to save the FAA more than $600 million in operating costs over the 15-year life of the program. Harris Corporation heads an industry-leading team of telecommunications companies in the implementation of FTI, which Harris says will be the most secure network serving civil agencies in the U.S. government.

"The telecom services now available to the new Atlanta ATC tower provide air traffic controllers and managers with modern voice communications and some of the most sophisticated equipment data interfaces in the FAA's inventory, enabling the agency to meet the expanding air transportation needs of the southeastern U.S.," said John O'Sullivan, FTI Program vice president, Harris Government Communications Systems Division. "The cutover to the new Atlanta ATC tower from the old tower was an amazingly smooth effort and could not have been accomplished without the total cooperation among the Harris and FAA teams. The FTI network also provides a fault-tolerant architecture that prevents network interruptions and has the most secure network management system in the civilian sector of the U.S. federal government."

The managed cutover to the FTI network was accomplished on time at 3:00 am EDT on May 7, 2006, following a detailed checklist that allowed the world's busiest airport to continue full operations during the switch to the new tower -- the most modern ATC tower in the world. The new tower began tracking Atlanta's air traffic at 3:10 a.m. on May 13, 2006.

The Atlanta tower milestone follows the successful completion of four other key FTI transition milestones in March at sites in Palm Beach, Florida; Denver, Colorado; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. FTI equipment has now been installed and accepted at almost 1,500 FAA facilities with more than 5,500 operational services accepted nationwide. FTI network equipment will be installed at 4,400 FAA facilities nationwide and more than 20,000 services will be transitioned to the new network. Harris expects to complete the transition of all legacy telecom services to the FTI network by December 2007.

Harris Corporation