Motorola to buy RiverDelta for $300 million

Motorola plans to buy up RiverDelta, a maker of broadband edge routers that support cable network voice and data standards, for $300 million in stock.

The purchase complements Motorola's strategy of supplying broadband equipment that can guarantee quality of service from customer site to customer site over cable networks. RiverDelta faces competition in this market from edge routers made by Cisco, Lucent and Nortel.

RiverDelta makes the Broadband Services Router (BSR) 64000, an IP switch-router that enforces service quality on a per-packet basis in accordance with the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. This standard spells out how to ensure that delay-sensitive traffic such as voice and video are given priority over hybrid fiber-coaxial cable networks. Reliable voice service is key to cable operators that want to expand beyond broadcasting TV shows. BSR 64000 also can connect with other high-speed access networks.

In a cable application, the BSR 64000 sits at cable switching offices, terminating customer lines and connecting to core fiber networks. Using its priority scheme called SmartFlow, service providers also can support service level agreements on data.

The device, which can be stacked to form larger systems, also supports virtual routers within each system. These virtual routers can be assigned by the owner of the cable network to individual service-provider customers. So, for example, multiple ISPs could buy virtual routing over a single physical cable network, giving end users who are connected to the network a choice of ISP. The virtual routing feature would give each of these ISPs control of its own customers but not those of other ISPs sharing the network.

The company also makes the Optical Service Router 2000, an edge router designed to prioritize and feed traffic to optical metropolitan area networks.

RiverDelta has sold its equipment to Armstrong Cable Services, a provider in Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and has an arrangement for Siemens to sell the BSR 64000 as part of Siemens' cable offerings.

Motorola, in Schaumburg, Ill., is at www.mot.com/

RiverDelta, in Tewksbury, Mass., is at www.riverdelta.com/

Contact Senior Editor Tim Greene

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