Motorola Sells European Cable Modem Unit

Motorola sold its European cable modem business to Taiwan's Compal Electronics for an undisclosed amount, the company said late Tuesday.

Motorola did not disclose financial details of the deal, but said it began transferring inventory to Compal on Jan. 5. Compal will sell and support EuroDOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0 consumer-premises equipment -- data and/or voice modems and Wi-Fi gateways -- in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"To help optimize our DOCSIS 3.0 investment and still enable our EMEA customers to continue to deliver ultra-broadband services, Motorola has sold its EMEA EuroDOCSIS CPE business to Compal Broadband Networks," Motorola said in a statement. "We will continue to develop, sell and support DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0 CPE directly to our service provider customers in Asia Pacific and the Americas."

The deal was reported earlier by Cable Digital News.

In the last few months, Motorola has reportedly been shopping its Home and Networks Mobility unit business, looking for upwards of $5 billion. The unit, which includes set-top boxes, cable modems, video-transmission equipment and wireless network gear, has received interest from private-equity firms, according to Reuters.

For the past two years, Motorola noted, it has been working with Compal to design and manufacture Motorola's EuroDOCSIS voice CPE.

With the deal, Motorola's EMEA cable-modem customers "will continue to receive the original quality of Motorola with the manufacturing economies of scale afforded by Compal. In addition, Motorola customers will benefit from a dedicated Compal Broadband Networks R&D team which will be totally focused on the EMEA market," Motorola said.