Cisco today stated its intent to acquire Ubiquisys (News - Alert), a privately held company headquartered in Swindon, U.K. The aim of this acquisition is to strengthen Cisco's commitment to its service provider customers, by furthering its mobility expertise and offering more intelligent mobile Internet networks.

Ubiquisys can indeed help Cisco achieve this goal as it is a leading provider of intelligent 3G and long-term evolution (LTE (News - Alert)) small cell technologies that provide seamless connectivity across mobile heterogeneous networks for service providers. In fact, the company was recently ranked the number one access point vendor for enterprise and residential small cells by ABI Research, demonstrating Ubiquisys' innovation leadership with deployed technologies including ActiveSON and CloudBase.

"Cisco (News - Alert) is 'doubling down' on its small cell business to accelerate strong momentum and growth in the mobility market," said Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president and general manager of the Cisco Mobility Business Group, in a statement. "By acquiring Ubiquisys, we are expanding on our current mobility leadership and our end-to-end product portfolio, which includes integrated, licensed and unlicensed small cell solutions that are tightly coupled with SON, backhaul, and the mobile packet core. For service providers, Ubiquisys supports cost effective coverage and capacity that delivers a differentiated customer experience."

Ubiquisys' small cell solution enhances the edge of the network with dynamic intelligence, enabling service providers to better monetize and optimize their mobile networks. This level of expertise, paired with Cisco's mobility portfolio and Wi-Fi expertise, will result in a small cell solution for service providers capable of supporting the transition to next-generation radio access networks.

By offering service providers a comprehensive solution to extend an intelligence layer across the mobile network, the end user will enjoy a differentiated connected experience.

Furthermore, the acquisition of Ubiquisys will complement Cisco's recent acquisitions of BroadHop and Intucell and reinforcing in-house research and development.

Daryl Schoolar (News - Alert), principal analyst at Ovum, said the acquisition, “doesn’t just provide Cisco with Ubiquisys’ small cell knowhow; it also gives Cisco experience in working with a broader set of mobile operators. Ubiquisys provides Cisco much greater market credibility when it comes to 3G and LTE small cells. Cisco will also benefit by having greater control over Ubiquisys’ product development cycle, freeing Cisco from having to rely on the development cycle of third-party partners like IP access.”

“Small cell vendors should take Cisco very serious. Not only is Cisco greatly improving what it can offer mobile  operators  in terms of a licensed small cell, Cisco can also offer those mobile operators other tools, like data analytics, SON, and evolved packet core needed to build a mobile network. This isn’t something all of Cisco’s competitors can claim,” Schoolar said.