Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
News >> Technology >>
Alcatel to acquire Spatial Wireless
By siliconindia
|
Tuesday, 21 September 2004, 19:30 IST
PARIS: Pardeep Kohli, Seshu Madhavapeddy and Anuj Jain co-founded Spatial Wireless, a Richardson, TX-based provider of mobile switching solutions, is to be acquired by French telecom equipment firm Alcatel for $250 million in Alcatel American Depositary Shares (ADS).
Spatial had raised $58 million in venture capital financing including a $27 million fourth round led by VantagePoint Venture Partners in June 2003. Other investors in the company include Austin Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Dali, Hook Partners, Genesis Campus and Qualcomm Inc.
Pardeep Kohli, Spatial's President & CEO, had previously worked with Alcatel USA. He had also worked with Pacific Bell Mobile Services, NEC America and Panasonic.
Seshu Madhavapeddy, Spatial's Chief Strategy Officer, had earlier worked with Nortel Networks.
Anuj Jain, Spatial's VP-Engineering, earlier worked with Sabre Inc.
With 225 employees, Spatial Wireless has offices in the US and in India, and is headquartered in Richardson, Texas (US). Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel agreed to pay approximately USD250 million (approx. Euro 205 million) in Alcatel American Depositary Shares (ADS) for the total capital of Spatial Wireless. Spatial Wireless shares and options will be exchanged for a number of Alcatel ADSs to be determined at closing, according to an exchange ratio and within the limits specified in the agreement.
The deal allows Alcatel to leapfrog traditional mobile switching technologies with a commercially-available Next-Generation Networks (NGN) solution, designed and ready for IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS). This future-proof solution ideally complements Alcatels portfolio of next-generation IMS-ready products, addressing both fixed and mobile environments, and paves the way for future converged IMS architecture and multimedia services.
Spatials flagship product, Spatial Atrium®, is a multi-standard and field-proven mobile softswitch that controls distributed media gateways and manages call/session control for voice and data services. It works seamlessly in GSM/EDGE, 3G/UMTS and CDMA networks. It also enables smooth evolution to 3GPP Release 5 and Release 6 networks via software-only upgrades, thus ensuring long-term investment protection in preparation for IMS introduction.
Spatials distributed solution has established a clear leadership position in the market over the past eighteen months. It is already in commercial use and in market trials, with major GSM and CDMA operators in the world, in particular in North America, China, and India with over one million ports deployed in 2004. Available now, this distributed architecture solution provides mobile operators with major cost savings, while offering high scalability and capacity. Additionally, it offers an extensive set of features that can easily be personalized and extended according to individual operator requirements.