Airspan to acquire Corning’s Wireless Business
Private networks specialist Airspan Networks has reached an agreement with Corning Incorporated to acquire its wireless business. The news comes following a contrasting twelve months for the two companies. Last year saw a beleaguered Airspan delisted from the US Stock Exchange before a $95 million equity financing deal with Fortress Investment Group rescued it from bankruptcy. Corning on the other hand enjoyed a strong year with the Enterprise unit of its Optical Communications division seeing record sales, up 93% in the fourth quarter versus fourth-quarter 2023, contributing $612 million in net income, up 28%.
Despite this, Airspan walks away with a deal that not only includes Corning’s distributed antenna systems (DAS), its SpiderCloud 4G and 5G small cell radio access network (RAN), but also 10,000 installations, relationships with major mobile operators, public venues, enterprise customers, and a broad patent portfolio.
Additionally, Airspan benefits from the recent successful integration of SpiderCloud’s radios with Ericsson’s Intelligent Automation Platform (EIAP). As a result, it could offer its newly acquired radio units as plug-and-play solutions to all EIAP customers, including AT&T, who supported the integration efforts..
Commenting on the news Glenn Laxdal, President and CEO of Airspan said “This acquisition is a strategic step for Airspan, reinforcing and expanding our ability to serve enterprises and mobile network operators.”
Airspan is betting on in-building coverage to revive the mobile infrastructure market after a challenging two-year period marked by a significant decline in operator spending. Analysts agree: Del’Oro’s most recent forecast puts Private wireless RAN growth at 21 percent CAGR over the next five years, in stark contrast to public RAN revenues, predicted to fall at a 3 percent CAGR over the same time period. Whether operators can fully capitalise on this opportunity however, is less clear. As Omdia’s Chief Analyst for Enterprise Services, Camille Mendler notes, private networks currently generate less than 1% of their revenues.
