Last Week, Cisco (News - Alert) bought Tandberg (News - Alert), adding to its video portfolio, and this week the acquisition expanded network core. With the addition of Tandberg the goal was to expand the product line and consolidate the marketplace. It’s an edge solution where the relationship with the enterprise customer is the focus.

 

Starent Networks (News - Alert), which represents almost equal amount of money ($3.9 billion) to the acquisition of Tandberg ($4 billion), is still is a video play. However, it’s not about the Enterprise, it’s about the "carrier's core." The carrier is trying hard to support multimedia without combining it with the traditional voice services.

 

There are sound technical reasons to do this as well as business rationale.

 

Starent Networks has the role of being a bridge between the wireless network and the evolved packet core. Perhaps the strongest value it brings to the table is the paradigm that reflects the carrier’s objectives. Starent Networks enables migration from the legacy wireless network with an infrastructure system that enables everything from authentication to packet inspection.

 

When it comes to network management, Cisco has always been more to the Internet side and less to the carriers liking. So competing with Starent for the multimedia core has proven troublesome. Many Starent customers are existing Cisco customers, and, like the Tandberg deal, this represents an opportunity for some more customer-friendly integration.

 

With Tandberg it was associated with a better user experience; with Starent, the improvement will be on carriers’ wireless network management and provisioning services.

 

Starent is considered strategic for future services that may include new levels of managed services, classes of services and solutions that support partnerships on the wireless network.

 

As carriers continue to seek the network API that enables them to gain from customers’ choices of applications, the distinction of service levels maybe accomplished through the Starent solutions.

 

Building solutions that enable billing for packet services has been fraught with difficulties and the design of the Starent shows the state of network operator’s perspectives on the core packet network.