Unstrung reports that Airspan Networks is set to close a $8.7 million acquisition of VOIP softswitch vendor ArelNet by the end of May. According to Unstrung, Airspan hopes the acquisition will enable it to support 802.16 voice services.
Airspan today announced it has signed a definitive purchase agreement for the Israeli company, following a letter of intent inked last December.The deal comprises $4 million in cash and $4.7 million in Airspan s common stock. Founded in 1996, ArelNet has a headcount of 38 and touts the likes of France Telecom SA and Telecom Italia SpA as customers of its VOIP gateways and softswitches.
We are firm believers in the future of voice over IP, says Aronstam. To do voice over IP the voice call has to run over a softswitch. We were finding that our customers would typically go out and buy their own softswitches, and we would then have to integrate our products to make sure it is signaled properly though their softswitch architecture.
That is technically complicated, so we decided to find a product we could buy and integrate into our wireless platform. We can now offer a turnkey voice-over-IP WiMax system by integrating the two products.
Meanwhile, Juniper Networks on Tuesday made its first foray into the voice-over-IP space when it announced a deal to acquire Kagoor for $67.5 million as part of a campaign to expand its wireless portfolio. The five-year-old company’s VoiceFlow SBC controllers are used by about 100 carriers around the globe. They support carrier-to-carrier peering as well as between the carrier and the consumer. The controllers link Internet connections with the predictability of private wide-area networks.
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