Network equipment giant Cisco Systems has announced a definitive agreement to buy Navini Networks, a mobile WiMAX equipment making startup based in Texas.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco said it will pay about $330m in cash and assumed options. The Navini acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions, and is expected to close in Q2 of Cisco's 2008 fiscal year, which will end in January.

Upon the close of the acquisition, Cisco said it plans to integrate Navini into its wireless networking business unit, under the Ethernet and wireless technology group.

Although the company has acquired several properties dealing with WiFi  technologies, this marks Cisco's first foray into the WiMAX realm.

WiMAX, a broadband wireless technology standard most enthusiastically championed by industry giants Intel, Samsung Electronics and Motorola, is described by its backers as the most capable fourth generation, or "4G", standard for wireless connectivity.

Intel, which has invested heavily in Navini and other WiMAX startups, went so far earlier this fall to call 2008 "the year of WiMax" in light of  the hundreds of network deployments the company has made worldwide and the arsenal of new WiMax-enabled products currently in the works. However, the standard has encountered opposition in Europe, where there has already been heavy investments in infrastructure and legislation to support 3G wireless networks.

Cisco is apparently not putting all of its eggs in the WiMAX  basket, however. In a statement made yesterday, the company said that the acquisition of Navini will help "extend and enhance" Cisco's vision to enable service providers to "deliver any service to any device over any network." Mostly, Cisco said, it expects the WiMAX  additions to increase its pull in emerging regions that are most likely to embrace the WiMAX standard.

"Emerging country service providers are in expansion mode, building out broadband wireless networks and are concerned about deployment costs and the availability of skilled resources," Brett Galloway, VP and general manager of Cisco's wireless networking business unit, said in a statement.

"Around the world broadband wireless networks based upon WiMAX  have the potential to add millions of new Internet users who cannot be reached economically using copper or fiber infrastructures."

Cisco said it chose Navini because of its vast portfolio of broadband wireless WiMAX solutions, with offerings including base stations, adaptive antenna arrays, management systems, and subscriber modems.

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor - Electronic News

See also: Electronics Weekly's Focus on Wireless, a roundup of content related to wireless communications, and Electronics Weekly's Technology Start-ups, where you can find articles on technology start-ups in the UK.