March 5 (Reuters) - U.S.-based communications equipment

firm Viavi Solutions Inc ( VIAV ) has agreed to buy British

telecommunications testing firm Spirent Communications ( SPNUF )

for about 1.01 billion pounds ($1.28 billion), the firms said on

Tuesday.

Spirent shareholders will get 175 pence per share and a

special dividend of 2.5 pence per Spirent share in lieu of any

final dividend for the year ended Dec. 31, 2023.

The per-share deal value is at a premium of about 61.4% to

Spirent's closing price of 108.4 pence on March 4.

The deal is expected to help Viavi Solutions ( VIAV ) boost its

expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning,

security, cloud-native architecture and automation.

As part of the deal, private equity firm Silver Lake

will make a long-term investment of $400 million in Viavi

Solutions ( VIAV ), the companies added.

($1 = 0.7886 pounds)