acquisitions, deals, telecommunications

GenBand Buys NextPoint

Wade Roush 9/17/08

Billerica, MA-based NextPoint Networks, the telecommunications equipment maker just formed last December from the merger of Billerica’s Reef Point Systems and Gaithersburg, MD-based NexTone Communications, has been acquired by Plano, TX-based GenBand, the company announced yesterday. GenBand, which is paying an undisclosed sum for NextPoint, makes devices called session border controllers (SBCs) that are used to set up calls in voice-over-Internet networks; as an article in Mass High Tech explains, the acquisition puts GenBand into more direct competition with other Boston-area SBC makers such as Acme Packet and Starent Networks.

Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com, call him at (617) 252-7323, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wroush.