Qualcomm Technologies may be planning to buy the Israeli startup Cellwize for $300 million, according to a report in Calcalist.
Qualcomm Ventures was one of the lead investors of Cellwize’s Series B in 2020, which raised $32 million. Cellwize has raised a total of $56.5 million in funding over four rounds.
Other investors in Cellwize include Intel Capital, Samsung Next and Verizon Ventures, among others.
In 2020, a Qualcomm Ventures executive told Fierce Wireless that Cellwize is focused on mobile network automation and orchestration. Its CHIME RAN automation platform helps pre-determine the most efficient design for a new cell site, with parameters that include which nearby sites to connect customers and how to create the fastest connections. This is in alignment with 5G network architectures, which are more software-defined and virtualized.
Cellwize customers include Verizon, Telefonica, Movistar and Nextel.
Qualcomm 5G Summit
Qualcomm is also hosting its 5G Summit in San Diego this week, where it’s made a couple of notable announcements.
The chip company says it achieved a 5G standalone mmWave connection with peak speeds of more than 8 Gbps, using a test 5G device powered by its new Snapdragon X70 5G modem-RF system.
The milestone took place in Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G Integration and Test labs in San Diego.
With standalone 5G mmWave connections, carriers can tap into the promise of super-fast speeds that 5G was always supposed to deliver. 5G mmWave may also become a critical technology for new fixed wireless access (FWA) offerings.
“Snapdragon X70 gives operators the ability to deliver extreme 5G capacity, multi-gigabit data speeds and new use cases across devices from smartphones to laptops, fixed wireless access equipment, industrial machines, and more,” said Durga Malladi, general manager for cellular modems and infrastructure at Qualcomm, in a statement.
Also at the Qualcomm 5G Summit, the company demonstrated other Snapdragon X70 capabilities, such as AI-enhanced 5G performance and 5G sub-6 GHz carrier aggregation across three TDD channels – delivering up to 6 Gbps peak download speeds.
5G carrier aggregation enables enhanced average speeds in wireless networks to improve performance. It can be applied in an intra-band scenario, where it’s using the same frequency band, or it can be done inter-band, where more than one spectrum band is used.