Broadband tech outfit OpenVault acquires cable maintenance specialist Nimble This

Broadband technology outfit OpenVault has acquired cable network maintenance specialist Nimble This and named Nimble This founder Brady Volpe as its chief product officer.

The company said the combination would put OpenVault’s Profile Management Application (PMA) together with Nimble This’ proactive network maintenance (PNM) solutions and make OpenVault the market leader in broadband prescriptive optimisation with automated PMA and PNM capabilities for HFC networks.

It said it would also significantly expand its customer base – including the addition of multiple tier 1 customers both domestically and internationally.

Post-acquisition, OpenVault will provide monitoring, diagnostics, maintenance, management, optimization, and other solutions to more than 80 operators around the world.

Volpe, a technologist whose 30-plus year broadband career has included positions with JDSU, Sunrise Telecom, C-COR and Filtronic Sigtek, founded Nimble This in 2013. The company’s PNM platform uses DOCSIS standards such as pre-equalization, fullband capture, upstream spectrum analysis, and other data analytics technologies including machine learning to identify, geographically pinpoint, and notify cable operators about impairments in the inside and outside plant, complementing OpenVault’s existing network performance, subscriber satisfaction and operational solutions for access networks and IP networks.

Nimble This is the second major acquisition by OpenVault within the past 18 months. The company’s acquisition of Velocidata at the end of 2021 enhanced OpenVault’s intellectual property portfolio in two key areas: the ability to capture, enrich, and process large amounts of telemetry data, and technology that underpins its productisation of CableLabs’ Profile Management Application specification.

“Brady Volpe’s expertise in troubleshooting of issues in RF and DOCSIS broadband networks has significantly helped the industry and cable operators deliver the superior subscriber QoE that consumers expect. The combination of the Nimble This PNM product suite with PMA and OpenVault’s other proven market leading solutions gives cable operators a powerful arsenal – creation of up to 40% more usable bandwidth in most DOCSIS networks, vastly improved network resiliency and a sophisticated set of tools to help monetize the continued growth in subscriber data consumption and increased bandwidth requirements,” said Mark Trudeau, CEO and founder of OpenVault.

“The excellence in leadership that OpenVault and Mark Trudeau have brought to network management and insights for over a decade has made it possible for cable operators of all sizes to anticipate and accommodate the rapid growth in broadband consumption. Together, OpenVault and Nimble This can provide a holistic view of the cable operators network from an end to end prospective, RF to IP,” said Volpe.