ARRIS Group has completed its tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of BigBand Networks (News - Alert), the company has announced.

ARRIS intends to complete today the merger of its wholly owned subsidiary, with and into BigBand, Pursuant to the Agreement and Plan of Merger signed on Oct. 10, 2011.  To receive cash equal to $2.24 per share, without interest and net of applicable withholding taxes, all outstanding shares of common stock of BigBand (other than the shares held by ARRIS, BigBand or their respective subsidiaries or shares held by BigBand shareholders who have properly exercised their dissenters' rights under Delaware law) will be canceled and converted into the right at the effective time of the merger, the company stated in a press release.

“We are pleased to announce the close of our acquisition of BigBand and welcome the talented professionals joining ARRIS around the world.  I'd like to thank the BigBand executive team for their support as we planned the integration of the two companies," said Bob Stanzione, ARRIS Chairman & CEO. "The acquisition supports our strategy of expanding our video product suite and investing in the evolution towards network convergence on an all IP platform.”

The BigBand common stock will cease to be traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market after the merger. Representing approximately 92.5% of the outstanding shares on a diluted basis, a total of 67,103,577 shares of BigBand common stock were validly tendered and not withdrawn in the tender offer (including 728,324 shares tendered through notices of guaranteed delivery).

Recently, the company announced the availability of the VIPr 6000, the next generation in its VIPr transcoding platform. Through recent advancements in silicon, the VIPr 6000 delivers a three-fold improvement in channel processing capacity - delivering three times the number of HD/SD channels per encoder chassis - at the highest quality, state-of-the industry video compression levels. This new capability dramatically reduces per stream powering needs, and rack space used in the head end both critical considerations.