Back on July 12th, while sitting in Paris, I posted that IBBS (Integrated Broadband Services) was going to acquire SinglePipe, a provider of Voice over IP to Tier Two and Tier Three cable operators.
Well, it has happened. This is an example of gap filling, while also a "take away" type acquisition. Reports are the buy was for under $2.0 million dollars, meaning the investors behind SinglePipe had pretty much given up pouring more money into the company while IBBS, clearly a company making a roll-up within the industry that services the cable operators, saw an opportunity to widen their offerings to the second rung of MSO's like Bressnan Communications.
For IBSS, which largely provided testing and monitoring services to the cable operators, the pick up means they can now go back to their customer base and offer Voice services, and know which operators can handle the technology and which need to upgrade their network infrastructure. With the National Broadband Plan's efforts currently underway at the Federal level (FCC, State Department, FTC, etc., the acquisition is very well timed for IBBS as it gives them a missing piece to be the one-stop shop up to the point of two way video communications. My guess is that could be the next piece of the pie, either directly or indirectly.
Light Reading has some additional perspective.
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