- Adding Athonet to HPE’s offering primes us for a key position in the fast-growing private cellular market
- With the integration of Athonet, HPE will offer a holistic, straightforward approach to deploying private 5G
- HPE’s international sales team and global partner network can accelerate Athonet’s private network deployments on a huge scale
Addition bolsters HPE’s position in wireless connectivity, enabling telcos to unlock new revenue streams and helping enterprises accelerate private cellular deployments
I am thrilled to announce that as of June 15, HPE has completed its acquisition of Athonet, a leading private cellular networking specialist. This acquisition signifies a major leap forward for HPE in our mission to revolutionize the private networking market, in part through simplifying and accelerating the deployment of private 5G.
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.
With its robust track record of more than 450 deployments across diverse sectors including healthcare, transport and logistics, utilities, and government, Athonet strengthens our leadership in the blossoming private cellular market. Athonet’s robust and innovative solutions have earned the company high regard and trust among enterprises, analysts, vendors and telcos alike. 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. According to IDC, the private cellular market is expected to be worth over $1.6 billion by 2026 for core networking alone1.
With the integration of Athonet, we will offer a holistic, straightforward approach to deploying the connected edge, helping telcos service this growing market and giving enterprises the confidence to leverage this technology. Our comprehensive private 5G, managed Wi-Fi, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and edge compute portfolios positions us perfectly to empower both telcos and enterprises on their private networking journeys.
My team is ready to hit the ground running taking our new expanded offering to a global market. HPE’s international sales team and global partner network can accelerate Athonet’s private network deployments on a huge scale. For many years, Athonet has been recognized for its industry-leading technology, and now with the global might of HPE behind it, I am excited at the growth opportunities in front of us.
An immediate opportunity I see is with our telco customer base. One of the paramount challenges telcos have faced over the years is generating new revenue from their networks. The monetization of network infrastructure has become increasingly complex as hyperscalers continue to extend their footprint into the telecom space. Telcos need to find ways to create value beyond basic data delivery and unlock new revenue-generating services.
The emergence of private 5G networks presents a remarkable opportunity for telcos, with enterprise customers demanding customized 5G experiences that offer low latency, increased reliability and extended range. I passionately believe that HPE is the partner that telcos need to take advantage of this growing market.
HPE is setting the stage for tremendous growth and innovation in the private networking portfolio by integrating Athonet’s expertise into our existing telco and HPE Aruba Networking enterprise offerings, and leveraging HPE’s global sales and partner ecosystem. This acquisition is a powerful statement of our commitment to extending our leadership in edge-to-cloud solutions.
We're delighted to welcome Athonet to the HPE family, and look forward to driving digital transformation for our customers from edge-to-cloud.
The future of private networking is here, and we're ready to lead the way.
– Tom Craig, general manager, communications technology group, HPE
