Spirent Communications plc, a communications technology company, recently signed an agreement to acquire Metrico Wireless (News - Alert), Inc. for a cash consideration of $52 million. Privately held by Dimitrios Topaltzas and others, Metrico offers services and tools for analyzing the performance and subscriber quality of experience (QoE) of mobile devices in the field.

The acquisition of Metrico has strengthened Spirent’s (News - Alert) position as a communications technology company. Spirent will integrate Metrico's solutions with its lab-based mobile device performance test solutions to provide a common set of methodologies, tools and diagnostics across lab and field testing. Spirent’s lab test solutions are used to evaluate performance of the latest technologies. As new communication services and applications are introduced in the market, Spirent provides tools for service management and field test to improve troubleshooting and quality. Spirent also enables enterprises, institutions and government agencies to secure and manage their networks.  

"Innovation and competition in the wireless industry is driving aggressive release cycles of sophisticated devices and services," said Bill Burns, CEO of Spirent. "As carriers and device vendors strive to minimise time to market, improve subscriber quality of experience and reduce device return rates, they must also contend with disruptive technologies including 4G data, VoIP and the cloud. In line with our strategy of investing in growing and emerging technology markets, Spirent is responding to these needs by bringing together our device performance test strength in the lab with Metrico's field-based, subscriber-level focus. The result is an unparalleled end-to-end test portfolio, allowing our customers to increase subscriber satisfaction and loyalty while reducing time to market, as well as their operational costs."

"Metrico has established a position as a trusted partner to the industry, and we are excited by the opportunity to leverage Spirent's complementary expertise, scale and global reach to address more needs for a broader set of customers," said Dimitrios Topaltzas, CEO of Metrico Wireless. "The combination of our service and product solutions for the lab and field results in a unique offering that enables operators and manufacturers to optimize end-to-end QoE more efficiently than ever before."

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