Cisco to buy mobile networking firm Intucell for US$475m

23 Jan 2013

Computer-networking equipment maker Cisco is to acquire mobile networking company Intucell for about US$475m in cash and retention-based incentives.

Under the deal, Cisco will receive a critical network intelligence layer to manage and optimise spectrum, coverage and capacity, and Intucell employees will be integrated into Cisco’s Service Provider Mobility Group, Cisco said.

Intucell, which is based in Ra’anana, Israel, is a provider of advanced self-optimising network software. That software is designed to enable mobile carriers to plan, configure, manage, optimise and heal cellular networks automatically, according to real-time changing network demands.

“The mobile network of the future must be able to scale intelligently to address growing and often unpredictable traffic patterns, while also enabling carriers to generate incremental revenue streams,” said Kelly Ahuja, senior vice-president and general manager, Cisco Service Provider Mobility Group.

“Through the addition of Intucell’s industry-leading SON technology, Cisco’s service provider mobility portfolio provides operators with unparallelled network intelligence and the unique ability to not only accommodate exploding network traffic, but to profit from it.”

The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2013.

Cisco image via Adriano Castelli/Shutterstock.com

Tina Costanza was a journalist and sub-editor at Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com