Airvana acquires small femtocell basestation startup

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Airvana Inc. has beefed up its presence in the home market for femtocellular UMTS basestations by acquiring U.K.-based 3Way Networks Inc.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Airvana is integrating UMTS and CDMA services to WiMax through its Universal Access Gateway. It needed designs for residential access to the radio access network.

3Way (Cambridge, U.K.) has been developing pico- and femtocellular basestations patterned on the same "flat" network architecture that combines several elements into basestations. 3Way's architecture is called Integrated Network on a Card.

Airvana has been moving to a more open architecture based on Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture backplanes, partnering with WindRiver, Open Clovis and Radisys for common elements.

In addition to working with wireless OEMs such as Sonus Networks and Tatara Systems, 3Way has developed UMTS products for military, avionics and maritime applications.