Lucent Technologies (LU) said today that it will acquire Hewlett-Packard's (HWP) fixed wireless equipment unit and announced plans to launch its own business based on the microwave communications technology.
In a statement, Lucent said it will buy HP's LMDS (local multipoint distribution service) Wireless Business and launch a new Wireless Broadband Networks (WBN) unit of its own in Milpitas, California.
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
The LMDS business unit, currently part of H-P's Video Communications unit, allows data-intensive voice and video, even television signals, to be transmitted over the airwaves to locations within an LMDS antennae's line-of-sight.
Lucent's moves come a day before the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is set to begin auctions of the radio airwave spectrum that LMDS technology is designed to use. Some 139 firms have qualifed to bid, and the winning companies are expected to use the spectrum to bolster their telephone, video, and Internet service offerings. The technology allows wireless access to data networks at high speeds of up to 45 megabits per second, the equivalent of 30 times the speed of a T1 connection, or more than 1,500 times the speed of the average PC modem.
Market research firm Strategis Group estimates that the U.S. market for LMDS equipment will grow to at least $8 billion during the next ten years. |
