Monday, January 26, 2009

Starent secures networking gear customer, Motorola

By Mass High Tech staff

Starent Networks Corp., a Tewksbury-based maker of mobile networking infrastructure equipment, has landed a new customer in Motorola Inc., which will use Starent’s multimedia core networking gear in the buildout of its LTE (Long Term Evolution)/SAE (System Architecture Evolution) product offerings.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to a statement from Starent (Nasdaq: STAR), the incorporation of the company’s technology will allow Motorola to offer an end-to-end, LTE network offering for network operators. Highlighted in the offering is the ability to provide a smooth migration from either CDMA-based or GSM-based networks to the LTE standard.

LTE is a fourth generation, Internet protocol (IP)-based standard for the wireless network core that is expected to provide a broadband-like experience over mobile networks. Motorola has been publicly involved in the advancement of the standard since early 2008, when it performed demonstrations on the technology’s abilities with regards to the delivery of personal, high-definition medial at the 2008 Mobile World Congress.

Starent has been focused on third and fourth generation mobile infrastructure gear since its inception in 2000. The company counts AllTel, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Virgin Mobile among its customer base.

Starent went public in June of 2007 through a $131 million initial public offering. The company reported $66 million in revenue in the third quarter of 2008, a jump of almost $5 million from the previous quarter and a jump of $30 million over the same period in 2007.