Next Level: Delivering Broadband Access
Description: Next Level, a spin-off from General Instrument, now part of Motorola Mobility, is a world leader in integrated broadband access platforms for delivering any combination of voice, high-speed data and multi-stream digital video services into the home or office using existing copper telephone pair drops.
Products: Next Level provides the NLevel3 – The Unified Access Platform. This fully-integrated, Asynchronous Transfer Mode based system provides Digital Loop Carrier, Fiber-to-the-Curb, Fiber- To-The-Node, Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer and full-service broadband access capabilities for the delivery of voice, data and video services over fiber optic and copper twisted pair networks. Next Level also provides broadband management systems and customer premise equipment for both high-speed data and video services.
Accomplishments: Next Level Communications was the first company to build and sell integrated/bundled broadband access platforms to deliver voice, high-speed data and digital video through a single system over existing copper telephone lines. By integrating many traditionally separate functions, Next Level’s products allowed telephone companies to incrementally add services by simply installing new modules into existing equipment. As a result, the telephone companies were able to get into the cable business thereby changing the nature of telecom as we had come to know it.
Founded: A year after it was founded in 1994, Next Level Communications was acquired by General Instrument Corporation. At the invitation of investor Ted Forstmann, who controlled General Instrument, Spencer Trask helped to spin it out of General Instrument into a new corporation in 1998. Its three principal owners invested over $600 million in cash, and Next Level went public in 2000. Next Level was purchased by Motorola in 2003, and in August 2011 Google announced that it was acquiring Motorola Mobility.
Financing: Spencer Trask Ventures led a $10 million financing in 1998.
Recent News: (August 15, 2011) Carl C. Icahn Comments on Merger of Motorola Mobility and Google
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