February 26, 2001–Santa Clara, California–Intel Corp. today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held VxTel Inc. in a cash transaction worth approximately $550 million. VxTel is a semiconductor company that has developed unique Voice over Packet (VoP) products that deliver high-quality voice and data communications over next-generation optical networks.
VoP is the critical technology for enabling the transition from circuit-switched networks, such as traditional telephone and wireless networks, to packet-based networks, such as the Internet. The transition to a single, multi-service network enables service providers to take advantage of the efficiency and flexibility of packet-based networks while expanding their ability to provide more differentiated voice, data, and video services to their customers over a single broadband connection.
VxTel has developed a high-performance digital signal processor (DSP), software, and reference designs that help telecommunication equipment manufacturers deliver voice and data services over a unified packet-based network. The VxTel VoP solution enables more than 2000 simultaneous voice connections on a single card, making it the highest-density solution on the market today. This means that service providers can support more customers with less equipment and at a lower cost, while delivering higher-quality service.
“The telecommunications industry is going through a major transition,” says Mark Christensen, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Network Communications Group. “The convergence of voice and data traffic through a common network enables service providers and carriers to deliver a wide variety of new services without the cost of expanding and maintaining two different networks. VxTel’s Voice over Packet solution, together with the broad family of Intel Internet Exchange Architecture communications components, will enable our customers to accelerate their designs to take advantage of this new opportunity.”
The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and certain closing conditions. Upon completion of the acquisition, VxTel will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel, reporting into the Telecom Component Division of Intel’s Network Communications Group.
VxTel is headquartered in Fremont, CA, and has additional locations in Boulder, CO; Irvine, CA; and Bangalore, India.