Fon acquires XCellAir, reinforces Fontech’s Home WiFi Solution

Fon has acquired XCellAir, a commercial initiative by mobile research and development company InterDigital Inc., focused on WiFi Quality of Experience (QoE).

The acquisition strengthens Fontech, Fon’s technology arm, which is focused on the development of wireless solutions for operators and enterprises, and further establishes Fon’s position in the North American market where XCellAir’s sales and technical teams are located. XCellAir’s innovative technology enables unified management and optimization of dense WiFi and cellular network deployments for service providers. The addition of XCellAir’s expertise and products builds on Fontech’s proven ability to empower operators to further optimize available WiFi capacity and greatly enhance user experience through improved latency and throughput.

In addition to acquiring XCellAir’s team of wireless QoE experts, Fontech will be incorporating XCellAir’s core product, the XCellRAN™ carrier WiFi solution, into its WiFi portfolio. The powerful, cloud-based and scalable platform is suitable for an operator’s entire WiFi footprint and for any vendor equipment, both existing deployed and next-generation WiFi access points. Combined with Fontech’s solutions that cover every aspect of WiFi delivery, from homes and workplaces to venues and public spaces, the new technology fits seamlessly into the company’s offering.

XCellAir has developed cloud-based self-organizing network (SON) and radio resource management (RRM) technologies that provide cellular service levels and control to WiFi networks, allowing providers to offer a reliable, high-performance WiFi experience to their customers. It also gives aggregated, network-wide visibility, QoE analytics and remote diagnostic and debugging capabilities. These analytics and troubleshooting tools deliver actionable insights about network and service quality for operation teams and exceptional customer support capabilities helping reduce churn and support costs and further strengthening Fontech’s Home WiFi and Carrier WiFi solutions.

Alex Puregger, CEO of Fon, commented on the acquisition, “For years, we have been working with leading operators to help them better utilize WiFi. With our Home WiFi Solution we give operators real-time visibility of home WiFi usage and provide their customers with a great, fully-managed in-house WiFi experience. This will become even more important in the future as the number of connected devices in our homes soars. We have known XCellAir for a long time and have always been impressed by their product, vision, and team, which are all complementary to Fon. We are very excited to welcome them to Fon. The acquisition of XCellAir will further boost our technology and product leadership in the area of operator-managed WiFi.”

Amit Agarwal, CEO of XCellAir, highlighted, “We are proud to have established XCellAir as a leader in the WiFi management and optimization space and, in particular, enabling operators to deliver the best home WiFi experience. The acquisition of XCellAir by Fon enables us to take the business to the next-level, immediately increasing scale and global reach. The entire team is excited to join the Fon family.”

In recent months, Fontech has been making moves in North America. Enrique Farfán, the company’s COO and Managing Director in North America recently relocated to the region and expanded their local sales team. This acquisition is a natural move for the technology provider looking to strengthen its position within the North American market.