Ixia acquires wireless testing firm

Ixia, a global provider of converged IP and wireless network test solutions, has announced that it will acquire VeriWave Inc., a performance testing company for WLAN and WiFi enabled smart devices. The acquisition is expected to close by July 18, 2011, subject to customary closing conditions.

Ixia is hoping to see accretive results from the acquisition within one year.

VeriWave wireless test solutions validate WiFi networks, smart devices, and applications by benchmarking and measuring speed, quality, interoperability, compliance, and other aspects of wireless performance. These solutions verify quality of rich-media experience from the end-user perspective, while simulating realistic and fully-loaded networks to test client interaction and performance under varying traffic conditions.

The prevalence of devices such as smartphones, tablets, and netbooks is increasing customer access demands and QoE expectations in a mobile environment. Additionally, the proliferation of smartphones and the sharp rise in traffic are driving carriers to attach WiFi and 3G/4G in innovative ways. WiFi traffic offload will be a key operator strategy to ensure that the network infrastructure scales economically.

"Equipment manufacturers, enterprises, and carriers alike are looking for a full set of end-to-end solutions that completely test converged WiFi, wired, and 3G/4G ecosystems—especially for video-savvy applications," said Atul Bhatnagar, president and CEO of Ixia. "By integrating VeriWave's portfolio of innovative WiFi testing solutions, Ixia will help ensure that carriers, multisystem operators (MSO), enterprises, and network equipment manufacturers are able to fully support media-rich applications running on all types of wireless smart devices."

"This is an exciting day for VeriWave and Ixia customers, partners, and employees across the globe," said Chris DeMonico, CEO at VeriWave. "VeriWave's wireless testing solution is a fantastic fit for Ixia's end-to-end IP and LTE offerings. Ixia's deep breadth of testing options provides existing VeriWave customers with an extensive portfolio to use for continued product development and service deployment," DeMonico commented.