Less than two weeks after completing its purchase of TE Connectivity’s wireless business, CommScope has announced an agreement to buy small cell vendor Airvana for an undisclosed amount. Airvana makes 3G and LTE small cells and has shipped more than 1.5 million small cells to date. Its solutions are deployed primarily in stadiums and office buildings.
Airvana’s OneCell solution has completed interoperability testing with Alcatel-Lucent, Samsung, Ericsson, Cisco, Huawei. It is called OneCell because it is a one-sector solution, a choice made by Airvana to eliminate handovers and interference.
Airvana separates the baseband unit from the radio in a centralized RAN architecture, but unlike many C-RAN small cell solutions, Airvana uses Ethernet instead of fiber for the fronthaul. This could make the company an especially good fit for CommScope, a leading provider of broadband cable.
So far, Airvana has not deployed small cells that support more than one operator, but its solution does support more than one carrier. Airvana said that technically this is no different from a multi-operator solution.
“Airvana has differentiated itself in the emerging indoor small cell market through its unique product architecture and innovation,” said Morgan Kurk, senior vice president and wireless segment leader at CommScope. “With a 15-year track record of delivering mobile broadband infrastructure products that meet the requirements of Tier 1 operators, Airvana’s carrier-grade embedded software development capabilities are impressive and complementary to CommScope.”
CommScope may be able to deploy Airvana’s solutions in venues that do not represent enough traffic to yield a return on a DAS investment. Airvana said that at a Gross Coliseum in Kansas (seating capacity 7,600), Nex-Tech Wireless reported that it had been able to deploy the OneCell solution for less than half the cost of a DAS.
Airvana’s existing employees, most of whom are in Chelmsford, Massachusetts and Bangalore, India, will join CommScope. The acquired business will continue to be headquartered in Chelmsford and will operate within CommScope’s wireless segment upon completion of the acquisition.
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