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September 04, 2014

Wheelings & Dealings: Taqua Buys Kineto Wireless

Taqua in February unveiled a voice over Wi-Fi solution. Today the company revealed that it is continuing to move down the voice over Wi-Fi path via its acquisition of Kineto Wireless. Taqua says this deal, announced today, enables it to deliver a complete and proven VoWiFi solution.

The value of the deal was undisclosed.

Taqua and Kineto had a pre-existing relationship, through which they collaborated to provide an end-to-end VoWiFi solution leveraging Taqua’s Virtual Mobile Core and Kineto’s mobile client solutions. That solution is in use by Sprint.

The Taqua VoWiFi solution launched earlier this year leverages the small cell technology Taqua got via its 2011 acquisition of Tatara Systems and includes software in the network that can run on an industry-standard server, and a client on the user’s smartphone. The in-network piece does SIP translations and essentially acts as a switch. The client piece checks for Wi-Fi access points on which the user is registered, and if it sees one; it turns off the device’s cellular connection and instead sends all communications through the Wi-Fi.

Given that 80 percent of all mobile data traffic is streamed indoors, 39 to 61 percent of offices have noticeably poor in-building coverage, and Wi-Fi is so broadly available and used, it makes perfect sense to leverage Wi-Fi not only for data but also for voice, Taqua noted in an interview with MobilityTechzone earlier this year. Seventy percent of data is carried by Wi-Fi already, leveraging Wi-Fi for voice as well is a no-brainer for carriers, said Frederick Reynolds, Taqua vice president of marketing, in that interview with MobilityTechzone.

Voice over LTE is also taking off this year, says research firm iGR, with several major U.S. mobile operators expected to make VoLTE commercially available on a widespread basis in the second half.




Edited by Maurice Nagle


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