Cisco to Acquire Intucell for Self-Optimizing Network (SON) Software

Cisco agreed to acquire Intucell, a developer of self-optimizing network (SON) software for mobile operators, for approximately $475 million in cash and retention-based incentives.

Intucell, which is based in Ra’anana, Israel,  offers a multi-technology and multi-vendor SON solution that provides real time RF visibility of the entire Radio Access Network, using OSS data to automatically manage and synchronize the network elements centrally.  The platform uses a “Virtual Drive Test” to automatically tune the network to actual conditions as they develop and change.

“The mobile network of the future must be able to scale intelligently to address growing and often unpredictable traffic patterns, while also enabling carriers to generate incremental revenue streams,” said Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Service Provider Mobility Group. “Through the addition of Intucell’s industry-leading SON technology, Cisco’s service provider mobility portfolio provides operators with unparalleled network intelligence and the unique ability to not only accommodate exploding network traffic, but to profit from it.”

http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1129887

• Investors in Intucell include Bessemer Partners.
• Intucell is headed by co-founder Rani Wellingstein (CEO), who previously was a founder and vice president of Celltick Technologies, a developer of mobile broadcast. Prior to that he was the general manager and a founding member of NKO, a pioneer in IP telephony, and led its sale to ECI Telecom in 1998.