What’s next for CommScope now that it bought Casa Systems

• CommScope recently emerged as the winning bidder for Casa’s cable biz, outbidding Vecima
• The company could take advantage of Casa’s vBNG product, said analyst Jeff Heynen
• The deal could also help CommScope accelerate its entry into the vCMTS market

CommScope turned heads when it announced it was the winning bidder of Casa Systems’ cable assets, with Vecima Networks walking away from the deal.

Casa in April filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with plans to sell off its 5G core, RAN and cable assets. Vecima at the time placed an initial $20 million bid, and while the bankruptcy court approved procedures for soliciting additional bids, it seemed Vecima would emerge as the likely winner.

Only it didn’t.

Dell’Oro analyst Jeff Heynen said he thinks Vecima was “very disciplined” in not placing a bid that exceeded its initial $20 million valuation, as it would have had to make a “significant expansion” to scale Casa’s assets and achieve the necessary revenue targets to justify going over CommScope’s $45.1 million bid.

“There are always risks inherent in that and we have seen many examples of companies that have bitten off more than they could chew,” Heynen said.

He added Vecima probably “went as far as they could in the bidding process and perhaps even slightly beyond, hoping Commscope would back out.”

What’s in it for CommScope?

Casa’s virtual broadband network gateway (vBNG) is one thing. A vBNG has the same functionality as a traditional BNG, except it separates the network functionality from hardware.

Heynen explained since Casa was early in developing its vBNG product, it was able to get proof-of-concept with some of the larger Tier 1 operators (such as Izzi in Mexico) “that will ultimately turn into revenue later this year and next year.”

“Commscope has a full portfolio of OLTs and ONTs,” he said. “Increasingly, the glue for those products is a vBNG, especially among their existing cable customers who are doing greenfield fiber buildouts.”

vBNG deployments are expected to ramp up in 2025 and beyond, Heynen noted in a blog, as operators continue to move away from hardware-based BNG functions and look to “separate control and user plane functions.”

Another reason CommScope scooped up Casa could have to do with CommScope’s virtual CMTS product, dubbed vCore. CommScope unveiled vCore in September 2023, touting the architecture can reach over 8 Gbps in the downstream with a mix of old and new DOCSIS gear.

However, vCore might not be as far along as it needs to be, according to Heynen.

As he pointed out in a separate blog, CommScope was supposedly having a difficult time moving the virtualization of Media Access Control (MAC) functions from its E6000 chassis to commercial off-the-shelf servers.

“It isn’t easy to abstract functions in software when they have been part of an integrated platform,” he told Fierce.

“Making this process more difficult, specifically in the case of CommScope, were the strategy shifts and comings-and-goings of key development personnel.”

Having Casa’s vCMTS product at its disposal could help accelerate CommScope’s entry into the vCMTS market, Heynen added, and give the company “some Tier 1 trials and deployments from which to draw performance data and additional customer requirements.”