Cisco Buys WiMAX Equipment Maker Navini
Cisco announced Tuesday that it’s buying Navini Networks. The buyer calls the deal a vote of confidence that WiMAX will be important in providing wireless broadband. Cisco agreed to pay $330 million for privately held Navini, which makes WiMAX base stations, modems and antennas.
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“Cisco listens to our customers and observes the market,” said Tony Bates, a senior vice president of the company. “Recently, the WiMAX radio systems to deliver broadband wireless have matured, customers are deploying live networks, and overall investment and demand [have] increased. Therefore, Cisco views this as the proper time to add licensed WiMAX products to our broadband wireless offer.” Bates said Cisco has never sold WiMAX radio systems, though it has manufactured products and solutions used in WiMAX networks.
Cisco expects worldwide demand for WiMAX equipment, said Brett Galloway, general manager of the company’s Wireless Networking Business Unit. “Emerging country service providers are in expansion mode, building out broadband wireless networks, and are concerned about deployment costs and the availability of skilled resources,” he said. “Around the world broadband wireless networks based upon WiMAX have the potential to add millions of new Internet users who cannot be reached economically using copper or fiber infrastructures.”
Cisco said it looked at several other possibilities before choosing Navini as its 124th acquisition. Cisco plans to keep most of Navini’s 260 employees. Cisco will make Navini part of its networking business unit, which includes Linksys, a leading maker of Wi-Fi equipment. Cisco expects the deal to close in the second quarter of the company’s 2008 fiscal year.