Cisco today announced another acquisition with the purchase of policy control firm BroadHop.
BroadHop is the 11th buy that Cisco has made this year as it continues to bolster its portfolio of networking products.
BroadHop aims its products at the telecoms market, promising service providers the ability to “take control of their converged networks” through policy control over fixed, wireless or mobile connections.
Cisco believes this skillset will give it an even bigger opportunity to monetise the services carriers provide to their customers.
“A service provider can integrate BroadHop technology to enable users to purchase customised premium service packages,” wrote Hilton Romanski, head of corporate business development at Cisco, on the firm's blog.
“For example, if a consumer desires premium on-demand streaming, BroadHop technology allows the service provider to add value to, and monetise, this particular service. In return, the user is granted a high level of service and premium bandwidth to ensure the best possible experience.
“This acquisition reinforces Cisco’s commitment to service providers by enabling policy control and service management across mobile, fixed and wireless broadband networks and adds value by driving the mobility network architecture to the next level.”
The solutions will become part of the service provider mobility group at Cisco and the team will be moved over, reporting to Shailesh Shukla, vice-president and general manager of the company’s software and applications Group.
No financial details of the deal were disclosed.
The acquisition continues to fuel rumours about Cisco’s exit from the consumer market. A report in Bloomberg this week claimed the company had hired Barclays to help it sell off its Linksys division, which makes routers for homes and small offices.
It bought the firm in 2003 for $500m but with the dismantling of its Flip camera business, the death of its Umi video conferencing product and the Cius tablet that never took off, it could be the next nail in Cisco’s consumer coffin.
Cisco declined to comment on the Linksys rumours.
