Milpitas, CA--In a move targeting the emerging Long Term Evolution (LTE), or 4G, wireless market, JDSU announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Network Solutions communications test business of Agilent, including the unit’s innovative 4G network verification and deployment products. The acquisition significantly expands JDSU’s communications test position, including the emerging market for LTE/4G solutions required by the dozens of wireless service providers and network equipment manufacturers upgrading to this next-generation technology.
Long term evolution technology will provide much higher bandwidth to support mobile data and video applications on handsets, notebooks, portable readers and gaming devices. More than 50 wireless service providers worldwide have announced plans to deploy LTE, including such companies as AT&T, Bell Canada, China Telecom, and Verizon Wireless. Test products are used throughout the LTE development, deployment and operational life-cycle.
“This acquisition establishes JDSU as a market leader in wireless test instruments and systems and enables us to provide customers with new innovative LTE solutions as they deploy this next-generation mobile data technology,” said Tom Waechter, president and chief executive officer of JDSU. “JDSU gains market-leading technology and a talented employee team that will fit well with JDSU’s customer-centric culture.”
Agilent reports that it is not leaving the LTE test market, and that it will continue to develop hardware and software for design automation, signal generation and analysis, and protocol test. Products in these areas cover design simulation, cross-domain test capabilities for digital to RF architectures (DigRF v4), and signal generation and analysis for early module test including FDD, TD-LTE, and MIMO. However Agilent said it thinks its network solutions business will be better handled by a company that focuses just on communications network testing.
The Agilent unit being acquired by JDSU has approximately 700 employees with business operations located in Colorado, the U.K., Singapore and Beijing. Its annual revenue for the fiscal year ending October 31, 2009 was $162 million from global sales of service assurance monitoring systems, drive test and protocol test instruments used by leading service providers and equipment manufacturers worldwide.
The parties expect to close the transaction, which is subject to receipt of customary regulatory approvals, in the June calendar quarter of 2010 for $165 million in cash.
For more information visit www.jdsu.com
Posted by Steve Anderson--www.laserfocusworld.com.