Unstrung was right. Cisco Systems announced today an agreement to acquire WiMax vendor Navini Networks for $330 million in cash and assumed options.
The acquisition of Navini instantly makes Cisco a player in the WiMax market. WiMax is seen as particularly useful in the developing world, notes C/Net, where fixed infrastructure is scarce or nonexistent.
Navini’s base stations operate in many different spectrum bands, including 2.3 GHz, 2.4 GHz, 2.5-2.6 GHz, and 3.4 -3.6 GHz. The support for different frequencies means Navini’s equipment can be deployed around the globe. Their product portfolio also includes customer premises equipment, WiMax modems, and PC cards.
In the video (above), Ned Hooper, senior vice president of Cisco’s Corporate Business Development, discusses the reasons Cisco acquired Navini and how this deal fits into Cisco’s acquisition and innovation strategies.
“This marks a departure for Cisco into the outdoor radio networking environment,” says Heavy Reading senior analyst Patrick Donegan. “In the initial stages, the company is likely to find it tough going against the likes of Motorola and Nortel that have been players in outdoor radio networking going back twenty years or more.”
“RF in outdoor environments is a black art,” says Donegan. “Navini gives them some of skill sets needed to become practitioners in that black art but they will need a lot more.”
Cisco says it plans to integrate Navini into its wireless networking business unit in the Ethernet and wireless technology group. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco’s 2008 fiscal year.
Navini is a pioneer in “Smart Beamforming” (pdf) technologies with Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) antennas, a combination that improves the performance and range for WiMAX services and lowers the overall deployment and operational costs for service providers.
Navini says Smart WiMAX systems will provide an estimated doubling of system capacity, while offering up to twice the coverage of simple WiMAX networks in a fully mobile setting. A demonstration earlier this year, the first in the industry between two different vendors, used Navini’s Ripwave® MX8 base station running Mobile WiMAX software and a CPE reference design prototype based on the Fujitsu MB86K21 802.16e-2005 Mobile WiMAX chip. Smart WiMAX beamformed connectivity was achieved using “dedicated pilots,” a mandatory feature for all Wave 2 Mobile .
Arraycom, another beamforming pioneer, is still unattached, although it has partnered with several different companies, including Freescale Semiconductor, Picochip, Alvarion and Samsung.
Arraycom uses smart antennas (also known as adaptive array antennas), that use feedback on the channel to modify the beam shape. Their reference design is said to meet the IEEE 802.16e standard and conforms to the WiMAX Forum base profile.
Nortel is less enthusiastic about beamforming. They say beams cannot say focused in urban multipath environments and believe MIMO is a preferable way to go, especially for high mobility users.
Cisco has changed its tune on WiMAX, which it once rejected as a niche technology. Navini itself was developed upon a proprietary S-CDMA technology, which it has now largely abandoned in favor of the Mobile WiMAX standard found in their Smart WiMAX line.
Cisco’s strategy might be summed up in a word — China.
Navini’s original S-CDMA standard is not far from China’s own 3G system, called TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access).
The equipment market forecast (below) by Maravedis, shows Brazil, Russia, India and China in light blue with the Rest of the World in dark blue.
The total number of WiMAX subscribers in India may reach 21-million by 2014, according to another study conducted by Maravedis and Tonse Telecom. They believe the annual 3.3 and 3.5 GHz equipment opportunity in India will increase from US$4 million in 2005 to a peak of US$280 million in 2014 (pdf).
Horizon Wi-Com is trialing its high-speed wireless broadband service in major U.S. cities in the Northeast region using 802.16e compatible equipment from Navini Networks (pdf).
Phase I of the deployment will implement service in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Richmond, and Cincinnati. Horizon Wi-Com purchased the 2.3 GHz, WCS A Block from Verizon. Black & Veatch will provide the support and program management.
Sprint told USA-Today yesterday that it plans to stay the course on WiMax. Paul Saleh was recently installed as acting CEO (see DW: Sprint Forces Forsee Out). Sprint also said they will not abandon Nextel’s IDEN network technology, although a number of push-to-talk services for Sprint’s CDMA network will roll out soon.
Sprint will launch WiMAX in 19 cities by April 2008. The Sprint WiMAX mobile broadband network will use the company’s extensive 2.5GHz spectrum holdings, which cover 85 percent of the households in the top 100 U.S. markets. Sprint has major WiMAX infrastructure contracts with Motorola, Samsung and Nokia.
- Motorola gear will be used in Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Minneapolis
- Samsung gear will be used in Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, Washington D.C. and now New York City.
- Nokia gear will be used in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Seattle.
Related DailyWireless articles include; Cisco To Buy Navini?, Arraycomm + Freescale Chips = Beamforming, Arraycomm + Alvarion = Smart Beaming, Go Networks Beamforms Champaign, India Gets Navini Beamforming, Navini Beamforms WiMAX, Metro Beamforming: Wavion & More, 2 Dot 3 Comes to Town, Mobile WiMAX PlugFest, Navini Beamforms Voice, Battle for “4G”, The Launch, WiMAX Demoed on Chicago River, Intel + KDDI = WiMAX Japan, Clearwire WiMAX in Spain, Sprint WiMAXing NYC, Sprint WiMAX: It’s Called “Xohm”, Sprint’s WiMAX Cities, Clearwire & Sprint Agree on WiMAX Roaming, Clearwire & SatTV Do a Deal, NextWave Announces Mobile WiMAX Chips and WiMAX World 2007.
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