Cisco continued its move into mobility this week with the purchase of Ubiquisys for $310 million. Ubiquisys is a British developer of small cell technologies with several major carrier and vendor customers, including Google, T-Mobile USA and Softbank.
The acquisition highlights Cisco’s growing focus on mobile networks in general and network software in particular. The company said it was attracted to Ubiquisys because of the company’s small cell technologies and its “focus on intelligent software.”
“Cisco is ‘doubling down’ on its small cell business to accelerate strong momentum and growth in the mobility market,” said Kelly Ahuja, general manager of Cisco’s Mobility Business Group. “By acquiring Ubiquisys, we are expanding on our current mobility leadership and our end-to-end product portfolio, which includes integrated, licensed and unlicensed small cell solutions that are tightly coupled with SON, backhaul and the mobile packet core.”
The acquisition could spell trouble for companies that compete with Ubiquisys to provide small cell solutions to carriers and equipment vendors. For companies like ip access and Contela, Cisco will go from being a potential customer to being a competitor.
“Small cell vendors should take Cisco very seriously,” said Daryl Schoolar, principal analyst at Ovum. “Not only is Cisco greatly improving what it can offer mobile operators in terms of a licensed small cell, Cisco can also offer those mobile operators other tools, like data analytics, SON, and evolved packet core needed to build a mobile network. This isn’t something all of Cisco’s competitors can claim.”
Earlier this year Cisco announced its intent to buy Intucell, an Israeli company that provides self-organizing network (SON) software to AT&T, for $475 million. SON can be a critical part of small cell deployments as it reduces interference, maximizes capacity and speeds integration with the macro network. Intucell,
In both the Ubiquisys deal and the Intucell deal, Cisco said that the purchase prices included retention-based incentives for employees. Employees of both companies will be integrated into Cisco’s service provider mobility group.
Ubiquisys and Intucell will join another recent Cisco acquisitions in its service provider mobility group: BroadHop is a Denver-based company that develops policy control solutions, and has partnered with Cisco in providing service provider Wi-Fi offload solutions.
Wi-Fi is a key focus for Cisco, as underscored by its biggest mobility deal to date: last year’s $1.2 billion purchase of Meraki. Meraki is a Bay Area vendor of Wi-Fi access points and cloud networking solutions. The Meraki team is now Cisco’s cloud networking group.
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