Sources: Tellabs to Buy Future Networks
By Jeff Baumgartner -- Multichannel News, 1/24/2001 6:07:00 PM
Tellabs Inc. will announce a deal to acquire closely held cable-modem vendor Future Networks Inc. perhaps as early as this week, sources said Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not immediately available.
Tellabs and Future Networks officials declined comment on whether a deal was in the works.
Tellabs does not currently have a cable modem in its equipment portfolio. It has, however, played with the idea. In December 1997, the company revealed plans for a proprietary cable-modem card to accompany its line of residential cable-telephony gear. But those plans didn't get very far in terms of cable-operator deployments.
Meanwhile, Tellabs has made inroads in the cable-modem-termination-system arena recently, announcing an alliance with Riverstone Networks Inc. at last year's Western Show.
In that deal, the companies agreed to combine Tellabs' 'CABLESPAN 2300' universal telephony-distribution system and 'MartisDXX' managed-access and transport network system with Riverstone's family of high-speed edge routers, resulting in a 'carrier-class' CMTS called the 'CABLESPAN 2700.'
By purchasing Alpharetta, Ga.-based Future Networks, Tellabs would get its hands on a line of Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification 1.0-certified cable modems.
Looking even further ahead, Future Networks has also submitted two models, the '110D' and '110E,' to Cable Television Laboratories Inc. for DOCSIS 1.1 certification.
Sources said Future Networks' cable modems could help Tellabs to make the transition from a line of circuit-switched gear to one based on Internet protocol that takes advantage of DOCSIS 1.1 and PacketCable standards and future VoIP (voice over IP) services.
That combination would make Tellabs a serious multiservice contender because it would then have the puzzle pieces (cable-modem and VoIP techniques) it would need to offer cable operators a DOCSIS 1.1-PacketCable system for IP-based telephony services.
DOCSIS 1.1 is the underpinnings for PacketCable, a multimedia architecture that cable operators will need to offer VoIP, as well as more advanced applications such as virtual private networks and interactive gaming.
No related content found.
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
