Mavenir buys small cell specialist ip.access to fill-out OpenRAN offering

Telecoms cloud software vendor Mavenir has acquired ip.access for an undisclosed sum to add more strings to its OpenRAN bow.

While Mavenir is all over 5G, operators still need to be able to support their legacy systems when moving to the latest whizzy tech. This, apparently, is one of the main the reasons for this acquisition, along with the other stuff that comes with a small cell specialist, such as private networks. Here’s what the announcement says it’s all about.

“Operators are looking to transform their 2G/3G networks as they migrate to 4G and 5G,” said Pardeep Kohli, President and CEO, Mavenir. “We expect to provide a seamless, multi radio access technology single RAN offering for those operators that allows them to have the benefits of advanced radio solutions across all layers.”

“Many subscribers in many networks and geographies need GSM and 3G service with LTE even as 5G is introduced,” said said Richard Staveley, ip.access CEO. “Mavenir’s OpenRAN and Enterprise solutions combined with ip.access’ multi-Radio Access Technologies positions the combined company perfectly for that future.”

As Light Reading says in its analysis of the deal, you’re not going to persuade operators to defect from the main kit vendors if you can’t cover their whole mobile tech stack. Mavenir is going to keep ip.access as a distinct business unit, at least for now, but its new job seems to mainly be to augment the core Mavenir offering. An additional bonus is the removal of one more company that likes to muck about with capital letters in its name from the open market.