Nokia Siemens to sell fixed broadband business to ADTRAN

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 13 December 2011 09:24

IT Industry - Deals

Nokia Siemens Networks is to sell its fixed line broadband access business to ADTRAN. It will be the third chunk of the company to be sold as part of Nokia Siemens' strategy to focus on the mobile broadband infrastructure market.

US based and NASDAQ-listed ADTRAN will acquire the fixed line broadband access business and associated professional services and network management systems, intellectual property, technologies and the customer base. Approximately 400 Nokia Siemens employees in engineering, R&D, sales and professional services around the world are expected to transfer to ADTRAN.

The agreement also includes provisions that would allow ADTRAN products to be incorporated by Nokia Siemens Networks into its customer propositions. The deal is expected to close by the end of April 2012. Financial dealings were not disclosed but in a filing with the US Securities & Exchange Commission, ADTRAN said it expected the deal would boost is revenue in the first year after acquisition by $US140m - $US180m.

Divestment of the broadband access business follows the sale by Nokia Siemens of its mobile backhaul business to Canada's DragonWave in early November and the sale of its WiMAX business to NewNet three weeks later, shortly after the company had announced plans to shed 17,000 staff - 25 percent of its global workforce - and focus its efforts on end-to-end network infrastructure for mobile broadband services.

ADTRAN, founded in 1985, comprises a carrier networks division and an enterprise division. The carrier division supplies a broad range of products for carrier access networks that spans both optical and copper technologies. Its enterprise division supplies small and mid-sized businesses and distributed enterprise customers with the internetworking equipment needed to create LANs and WANs: routers, fast ethernet, gigabit and PoE switches; IP communications platforms; IP phones; IP PBX platforms; wireless access points; security appliances and management platforms. The company has an Australian office in Melbourne.