CommScope announced today its intent to acquire Arris International for $7.4 billion, a move that would also bring in Wi-Fi vendor Ruckus, an asset that could help turn CommScope into a single-stop shop for large public venue connectivity products and services.
Financial details are available in the official announcement, but what will be more interesting will be how CommScope now markets itself to large public venues, like stadiums, for connectivity solutions. Previously known for its cellular distributed antenna system (DAS) infrastructure and back-end operations, with Ruckus in its portfolio CommScope could now offer an end-to-end solution for stadiums including DAS and Wi-Fi and also for those interested in Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) services in the near future.
Though commercial deployments for CBRS systems have not yet emerged, Ruckus has been a leader in the testing and certification process and is expected to be at the forefront of CBRS hardware providers when systems are ready to come online, possibly sometime next year.
If you’re keeping score (like we are), this is the third Ruckus has been acquired in the last two years. The list:
Feb. 22, 2017: Arris to acquire Ruckus from Brocade as part of $800 million deal
April 4, 2016: Brocade buys Ruckus for $1.2 B
That’s a lot of email changes and a closet full of new logowear…