Zhone picks up Vpacket

The telecom flea market just keeps on getting juicier. Today Zhone Technologies, which concentrates on voice and data access products, will announce plans to acquire Vpacket Communications, another voice/data player. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“There are some tasties out there that you can get at a pretty good bargain,” said David Markowitz, assistant vice president of marketing at Zhone.

So far, while other companies have been selling or closing their doors, Zhone has been buying up whole companies or certain distressed assets. Most recently, Zhone picked up Nortel’s access business. Overnight, Zhone picked up the No. 3 market share in the DLC market through that deal, Markowitz said.

And while the Nortel deal brought along significant customer relationships, the Vpacket deal was primarily about the company’s technology and its money in the bank. Vpacket has done very well with international partners, which Zhone hopes to capitalize on, according to Markowitz.

Vpacket brings IP-based voice/data router CPE to the table and is expected to beef up Zhone’s prowess with IP routing and line-side Ethernet interfaces.