HPE said this acquisition “signifies a major leap forward” in its “mission to revolutionise the private networking market”. The company will look to use Athonet’s technology to simplify and accelerate the deployment of private 5G.
Tom Craig, general manager, communications technology group, HPE, explained, “I fundamentally believe that the true value of 5G lies with enterprises rather than consumers. The billions of dollars spent on acquiring spectrum and deploying 5G networks will not be covered by consumer customers, instead the opportunity lies with enterprise use cases.
“Private 5G is by far the most exciting enterprise use case for 5G, offering high levels of coverage, reliability and mobility that augments the cost-effective, high-capacity connectivity provided by Wi-Fi. In our view, bringing private 5G and Wi-Fi together is the future of enterprise connectivity.
“In the months since we announced our intention to acquire Athonet, HPE customers have expressed a great deal of excitement over the prospect of adopting Athonet’s award-winning technology. Now adding Athonet, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, to our offering immediately primes us for a key position in the fast-growing private cellular market.”
Gianluca Verin, CEO and co-founder of Athonet, added, “Athonet was founded to provide customers with private 4G and 5G solutions that deliver carrier-grade reliability and performance to suit their increasing and more challenging connectivity needs.
“We are excited to join HPE and combine our highly skilled teams as we expand our joint service provider offerings for the rapidly growing private 5G market and build on HPE’s strategy to be the leading edge-to-cloud solutions provider.”