Tekelec to acquire Taqua for $85 m

NEW DELHI: California-based Tekelec has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Taqua, Inc, the Texas-based, privately held provider of next-generation Class 5 packet switching systems.

According to the company press release, Tekelec is purchasing all of Taqua's outstanding stock for approximately $85 million cash, plus the assumption of Taqua's outstanding options. The company expects to close the deal within 60 days, pending US anti-trust approval and the completion of certain contractual requirements. Post acquisition, Taqua will become part of Tekelec's next-generation switching business.

Tekelec is a developer of telecommunications signaling and switching solutions, packet-telephony infrastructure, network monitoring technology, and value-added applications.

The company, which began its India operations in 2003, has already bagged significant orders from Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices, VSNL and Bharti. The company claims that it has a 100 percent market share of stand-alone signal transfer points (STPs). Besides, it enjoys a 74 percent market share in signaling.

Talking about the acquisition, Tekelec India COO, Sanjay Vidyarthi said, "the acquisition of Taqua brings to Tekelec a market-leading Class 5 switching solution optimized for the small switch service provider market." According to him, with the addition of Taqua, Tekelec's customers will not only benefit from a switching business with an even broader choice of circuit-to-packet solutions, the Taqua solution will help carriers implement next generation switching solution even for the small city exchanges with a capacity of 5,000 to 10,000 lines. "This is particularly important for the Indian market where there are several hundred such facilities," he added.

Founded in 1998, Taqua is the market share leader in next-generation telephony systems and technologies. It focuses on improving local (ILEC) and competitive (CLEC) exchange carrier deployment and operational costs while delivering new and differentiated revenue-generating broadband services.

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