Cisco Systems has taken a deeper step in policy control and service management technology for carrier networks. The company announced yesterday its intent to acquire Denver-based BroadHop, a Wi-Fi service provider for Cisco. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Following the announcement Cisco’s shares closed at $20.38 on the Nasdaq, up 27 cents, or 1.35%.
In a statement, Cisco said the acquisition of BroadHop is an evolutionary step in supporting the open network environment for extensible network programmability.
As pointed out by Current Analysis’ David Snow and Peter Jarich, BroadHop is a good technology fit with Cisco with an open, scalable and virtualized “platform” approach. “BroadHop’s Quantum Network Suite is superior to Cisco’s own product, the ASR 5000 series-based Intelligent Policy Control Function. The BroadHop QNS gives Cisco customers a wider choice of proven PCEF interoperability partners,” they noted.
The company said that policy control and services creation on a large scale are vital for mobile and fixed communication service providers, given that global IP traffic is projected to increase three-fold over the next five years — after having increased eight-fold over the past five years.
Following the purchase, BroadHop’s widely deployed policy control solutions for mobile and fixed networks will be integrated into Cisco’s Service Provider Mobility Group to give service providers the ability to control, monetize and personalize the types of service they choose on any network.
The BroadHop team will be integrated into Cisco’s service provider networking group, reporting to Shailesh Shukla, VP and GM of the company’s software and applications group.
Regarding competitive concerns, Current Analysis noted that Cisco now has two policy controller products to manage and resolve, at least in the short term. They also pointed out that BroadHop was a successful independent and entrepreneurial company for nine years and could lose key talent during the integration process. “Will BroadHop’s extensive customer base all welcome the change of ownership of an asset selected on the basis of being independent from major suppliers?”
