Tektronix Communications acquires Newfield Wireless

LTE optimization solutions provider Newfield Wireless has been purchased by Tektronix Communications, a leading provider of network-intelligence solutions designed to offer service assurance and monitoring to network providers.

Newfield Wireless CEO Marc Bensadoun said the deal had been the subject of talks for some time, noting that the two companies’ portfolios are complementary.

“From a product-integration standpoint, our capabilities and expertise in the access domain really mirror Tektronix Communications’ expertise, depth and product leadership in the rest of the geoanalytics domain, where their expertise is very deep in the core and within the rest of the network,” Bensadoun said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

“Our RAN [radio access network] expertise is a very natural fit to complete the overall product portfolio, to be able to offer customers a true end-to-end offering to address all of the requirements faced by mobile network operators and all of the other constituencies in that market.”

Tektronix Communications President Lyn Cantor echoed this sentiment.

“Newfield Wireless’s RAN optimization products, services and expertise will combine with our own solutions to benefit service providers in two ways,” Cantor said in a prepared statement. “One is the ability to assure customer experience across the entire mobile network, down to the geolocated device. The other is an enhanced ability to provide new value-add data feeds into numerous departments—from operations to customer care to business audiences at any given service provider.

“We are pleased to welcome Newfield Wireless and are excited about the opportunities this will offer our customers.”

During the LTE North America conference conducted in Dallas, Bensadoun said he believes solutions from Newfield Wireless can be very beneficial to the FirstNet project by providing network-performance information to the network operator and/or to the first-responder end users. Now that Newfield Wireless is part of Tektronix Communications, the potential offering should be even more compelling, he said.

“This provides them with an ideal platform—a sort of one-stop shopping—to give them everything they need, including, ‘Am I getting what I paid for from FirstNet?’” Bensadoun said.

One key benefit of Newfield Wireless being part of Tektronix Communications is that it means Newfield Wireless will have the resources needed to accelerate the company’s research-and-development efforts, Bensadoun said.

“That’s something we’ve been looking for, because—although we have a leading product and really the best product for LTE—those resources and that organization have been something that’s been lacking,” he said.

From a branding perspective, the Newfield Wireless name will be maintained in the “near term,” as part of Tektronix Communications, according to Bensadoun.

“There’s no change in anything we’re doing, in terms of our market engagement,” he said. “You just can expect more and better.

“In the longer term, we’ve yet to determine the exact path, but you can look to see further and closer integration and streamlined branding to help customers in the market understand what we are and what they’re getting.”