Telefónica today announced that it has signed a strategic partnership with Quantenna Communications, a leader in ultra-reliable Wi-Fi networking for whole home entertainment. The partnership sees Telefónica making a strategic equity investment in Quantenna which gives it access to the latest Quantenna technology for the deployment of high performance video services to the home.
New services with high interactivity, low latency and huge bandwidth demands (such as high definition video), plus the increasing proliferation of connected devices in the home (many of those mobile) challenge today’s network technologies. As network operators start to roll out fibre services to customers’ homes, capable of delivering speeds of up to 100 Mbps, there is a looming bottleneck on the limited capabilities of current wireless technologies.
Quantenna has the networking expertise to bridge this capability gap and allow high quality video to be deployed wirelessly to multiple devices around the home. Quantenna’s family of Full-11n™ 5GHz chipsets uses the company’s cost-optimized, third-generation 4×4 MIMO technology to deliver up to 600 Mbps of bandwidth. The chipsets enable manufacturers to build products for delivering IPTV and other video streaming and data distribution services throughout the home over an ultra-reliable, high-performance Wi-Fi connection.
“Investing in up-and-coming technology companies is a core part of the Telefónica Digital strategy as we look to build our capabilities in order to succeed in the digital space,” said Matthew Key, Chairman & CEO, Telefónica Digital. “Quantenna’s technology will be a core component of our growth strategy for IPTV deployments in Europe and Latin America.”
Enrique Blanco, Chief Technology Officer at Telefónica, added, “Quantenna is a highly innovative company that has identified the looming capability gap between fixed and wireless networks and developed the solution to bridge it. Access to their technology will enable Telefónica to continue to meet the future home networking needs of our customers across our operating businesses.
“This strategic partnership and funding will enable us to expand our product offering for carrier-grade wireless IPTV services globally, as we continue to strengthen our industry-leading, 4×4 MIMO technology leadership position,” said Sam Heidari, chief executive officer for Quantenna.
The investment in Quantenna has been led by Telefónica Ventures, a division of Telefónica Digital, with offices in Silicon Valley, London, Madrid and Israel.
Telefónica Digital has been formed to lead Telefónica’s growth strategy in the new digital world. Through a combination of research and development, partnership, investment and acquisition it will bring innovative products and services to market that allow it to drive continued growth in the core telecommunications market, as well as taking a leading role in new digital services such as entertainment, financial services, M2M, cloud computing and eHealth.