Ericsson buys bankrupt smart grid company Ambient at $7.5M

Ericsson HQ

To strengthen the focus on smart grid offerings, Ericsson has completed the acquisition of Ambient Corporation, a U.S-based provider of smart grid communications technology for utilities.

As per Wall Street Journal report, Ericsson bought the bankrupt firm at $7.5 million. Ambient went bankrupt after it failed to sell its smart grid technology to power companies.

Ambient’s smart grid platform enables utilities to deploy and integrate multiple smart grid applications and technologies, in parallel on a single communications infrastructure.

Ericsson HQ

As part of Ericsson, Ambient’s platform will now help utilities to maximize their investments in smart grids. The service will be integrated into Ericsson’s Global Services organization.

Ericsson’s Global Services employs 64,000 services professionals based in 180 countries.

The acquisition will increase Ericsson’s ability to help utilities maximize their investments in smart grids, the company said.

Ericsson can leverage Ambient’s expertise in product and software maintenance and implementation service, as well as smart grid consulting services related to product development, network management, and smart grid architecture and deployment.

Magnus Mandersson, executive vice president and head of Business Unit Global Services at Ericsson, said, “At Ericsson we are increasingly using our experience in communications and providing managed services for networks that serve more than 1 billion subscribers worldwide to assist partners and customers in the utilities sector.”

Ambient smart grid communications platform, which includes hardware and software elements, provides utilities with an open IP network architecture that supports multiple communications technologies in parallel, including cellular, Wi-Fi, radio frequency (RF) and power line communications (PLC), and also provides serial and Ethernet connections.

The platform also enables the integration of various smart grid applications, such as smart metering, demand response, distribution automation and monitoring, and direct load control into a common infrastructure, the company said.

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