Chief technology officers from Comcast and Liberty Global were among those cheering the closure of Intel’s acquisition of Lantiq, a maker of broadband access and home networking silicon.
Intel, which makes chipsets for cable set-tops and gateways as well as DOCSIS modems, announced the deal in February, noting that it will help it broaden its play into the “Internet of Things” and provide a boost to “smart routers” for the connected home.
“This acquisition enables us to extend our success in cable home gateways into DSL and fiber markets giving us full coverage of broadband access methods around the world,” Intel’s Gregory Bryant explained in this blog post. “The teams are already developing innovative ways to use our combined IP to create new products to benefit our customers, which we’ll share more about in the coming months.”
Dan Artusi, Lantiq’s CEO, now reports to Bryant -- the corporate vice president in Intel's Client Computing Group, and GM of desktop client platforms -- and lead Intel’s new Connected Home Division.
MSOs that work closely with Intel weighed in on the deal.
“We’re pleased to see Intel growing their gateway business with the purchase of Lantiq," Tony Werner, Comcast’s EVP and CTO, said in a statement. “As Comcast continues to scale our networks to gigabit speeds, we look forward to having the benefit of a common architecture across multiple access technologies that shortens development time so we can quickly deliver ultra-fast broadband experiences to our customers.”
“We’re glad to see Intel expanding their portfolio of technologies with the Lantiq acquisition,” added Balan Nair, EVP and CTO of Liberty Global. “The combined group will be a leading supplier for broadband technologies with a comprehensive range of solutions to help us deliver ever faster connectivity to our customers.”
Arris, which makes devices that rely on Intel silicon, said the combo will bring benefits to its connected home platforms, Charles Cheever, Arris’s consumer premises equipment CTO, said.
When the deal was announced, Intel said more than 100 operators worldwide had deployed products powered by Lantiq, which has been focusing on DSL technology, including G.fast, an emerging standard designed to bring 1-Gig capabilities to DSL.
