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Ericsson could expand cable market share with BelAir acquisition

February 21, 2012 — 10:09am ET | By Steve Donohue

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Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) may soon be sending checks for WiFi gear to Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC), which said Monday that it agreed to buy top WiFi hardware and software supplier BelAir Networks.

Ericsson would pick up one of the hottest cable technology firms through its acquisition of BelAir, which could help the Swedish equipment vendor sell other products from its cable portfolio to U.S. MSOs, including video-on-demand technology, transcoders and other headend gear. Ericsson didn't say how much it would pay to acquire privately held BelAir, which is based in Ottawa, Ontario, but said that BelAir's 120 employees would join its company. The deal is expected to close during the first half of 2012.

BelAir has been on a tear in the last year, thanks to heavy investments in WiFi access points from Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Comcast, AT&T (NYSE: T), Bright House Networks and other telecom companies. Time Warner Cable announced last summer that it would spend $15 million to build WiFi hotspots in Southern California, using BelAir gear.

Comcast executives said earlier this month that the MSO would build more WiFi hotpots this year, and Cablevision, which has blanketed its footprint in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with WiFi access points built by BelAir, is studying how to use WiFi to offer its subscribers mobile phone service. Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision also have agreements that allow the cable MSOs to share the costs of building WiFi hotspots in the Northeast.

Ericsson said the BelAir deal would help it integrate WiFi and cellular technologies. "The acquisition of BelAir Networks will be part of Ericsson's heterogeneous network (hetnet) strategy to improve the mobile broadband experience by managing the co-existence of mobile technologies and Wi-Fi," Ericsson said in Monday's announcement.

For more:
- see the news release