Two Quebec companies are teaming up to sell the Canadian Armed Forces one communications system instead of two.

Base Camp Connect and Marconi Technologies announced a strategic partnership today. Base Camp Connect builds the integration layer that unifies voice, data, radio, and computing across whatever gear a unit already runs. 

Marconi Technologies builds the radios and backhaul that carry that traffic across the battlefield. Together, they're pitching one Canadian-built system that spans the full chain, from the strategic node down to a soldier on the ground.

Each company already sells to the CAF on its own. The partnership is new. So is the promise: a single, Canadian-designed and Canadian-manufactured answer to a problem that has dogged coalition operations for years, getting different countries' gear to talk to each other in the field.

Base Camp Connect, headquartered in Lévis, builds the BCC-NOMAD vehicle-mounted system. It's aligned with NATO's Federated Mission Networking standard. It's built for Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) conditions, the degraded environments where a network can't be trusted to just work. The company holds DISA-listed and JITC-certified security options. It also holds a National Individual Standing Offer with Ottawa. That means federal departments can buy its systems directly, without running a new competition each time.

Marconi Technologies, headquartered in Montreal, builds the radios. Its ORION family of tactical mesh radios is now in its sixth generation. It runs on a proprietary High-Throughput MANET waveform. Canadian-developed artificial intelligence manages the spectrum. The radios are built for high-throughput, low-latency links across land, air, maritime, and autonomous domains. Marconi's ARCHER troposcatter terminals stretch that reach further still, providing long-range backhaul beyond line-of-sight, no satellite required.

Interoperability keeps tripping up coalition operations. Allied forces show up to the same fight with equipment that wasn't built to talk to each other. Base Camp Connect and Marconi Technologies are betting a single Canadian-made system fixes that, at a moment when sovereign defence capability carries more weight in Ottawa than it used to.

"In modern warfare, the ability to communicate is the ability to act," said Jean-Philippe Grondin, President at Base Camp Connect. "This partnership strengthens our collective ability to put sovereign Canadian technology in the hands of our troops on the ground who face the realities of modern operations."

Faith Rhodes, Chief Operating Officer and Canadian Market President at Marconi Technologies, made the same point. "Both organizations have been building and refining military communications systems for years," she said. "Bringing our capabilities together creates a more complete solution, one that is Canadian-designed, Canadian-manufactured, and purpose-built for the operational realities our forces face."

The partnership starts now. Both companies keep operating independently while chasing joint opportunities tied to Canadian defence priorities. Their first shared stop: the International Defence Industry Exhibition (MSPO) in Kielce, Poland, September 8 to 11, where NATO allies will be shopping for exactly this kind of kit.

Base Camp Connect already serves NATO allies and public safety agencies beyond the CAF. Marconi Technologies already sells to the United States, the United Kingdom, and other allied nations. A package proven on Canadian soil could travel further than either company has gone alone.