Casa finds a new home for NetComm with DZS

While Casa revealed it was selling its 5G and cable businesses last month, it had been trying to flog NetComm for some time prior to that, to no avail. Now, at last, US company DZS has decided that an initial price of $7 million, plus up to $3 million more if 2024 earnings numbers are hit, is too great a bargain to resist.

“The acquisition of NetComm underscores our commitment to innovation at the network edge and further aligns with our vision and strategy of becoming the premier technology leader in broadband networking and cloud software management solutions,” said Charlie Vogt, President and CEO of DZS.

“With the addition of NetComm’s fiber extension, fixed wireless, WiFi 7 home broadband and industrial IOT products, the expanded DZS portfolio arguably will represent one of the most complete and technologically advanced open and standards-based broadband networking and cloud management software portfolios in the world and be uniquely aligned with the breadth of CSP needs and architectures.”

Vogt must have needed to take a deep breath after that marathon second sentence. Australia-based NetComm has been around since 1982 and was acquired by Casa for around $100 million in 2019. The massive drop in NetComm’s value mirrors that of Casa, which apparently had a market cap of over $1 billion at one time. The current telecoms recessions seems to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“NetComm’s cutting-edge fixed and mobile subscriber access technologies and marquee customers spanning Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe will bolster DZS’ broadband networking and cloud software portfolio,” said Steve Collins, CEO, NetComm. “Getting to know Charlie, his team and the DZS products and customers has assured us that the combination of technology, culture, customers, suppliers and employees is an ideal fit to continue the innovation and product excellence NetComm has cultivated over the last 40 years.”

DZS managed to get a few operator partners to serve up canned quotes saying what a great idea they think this acquisition is. Existing NetComm customers must be especially relieved that their supplier isn’t going bust and that they won’t (necessarily) have to rip and replace all its kit.

This marks the final chapter in Casa’s demise. Things seemed to start going wrong soon after its $150 million 2017 IPO and were apparently made worse by heavy investment in 5G technologies that have so far failed to live up to the hype, as well as the doomed NetComm acquisition of course. Perhaps the various new owners will have better luck.