Days After BitBand Deal, Motorola Buys RadioFrame

For the second time this week, Motorola Inc. (MOT) has bought a small company to add to its Home & Networks Mobility business, a division the telecom device maker reportedly is trying to sell.

On Friday, the Illinois-based company said it has acquired the iDEN business of RadioFrame Networks. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed; the same applied on Nov. 16 when Motorola announced its BitBand purchase.

But that’s about all that’s similar between RadioFrame and BitBand. BitBand specializes in IPTV deployments as well as content delivery networks and over-the-top video services. RadioFrame, on the other hand, provides what Motorola called lower-cost, power-efficient iDEN technology. Motorola developed iDEN – think Nextel’s push-to-talk service.

Motorola said RadioFrame’s iDEN products will work with its multichannel base stations in the special mobile radio business – that’s mostly outside of North America. For Motorola customers the integration of RadioFrame products means less power consumption, followed by lower operating expenses, the company said.