ECI Telecom announced today that it has agreed to pay $88 million in cash to acquire Laurel Networks.

The deal, which will close in a few weeks following normal regulatory approvals, gives ECI what it believes is the next evolution for its entire product set, a next-generation IP/MPLS multi-service edge router line.

We see the evolution of solutions that ECI is now in position to provide," said Dror Nahumi, corporate vice president of strategy and business. "It's not just with the [Multi-Service Access Gateway] HiFOCuS, but also on the metro networking side with our XDM product line. We just need to extend that and there are some good examples of customers of ECI that are deploying Laurel products."

Just two weeks ago, Laurel made its first push into the video/triple-play market with the launch of two new line cards for its ST200 router. That enhancement will fit in well with ECI's existing product roadmap, said Steve Vogelsang, vice president of marketing and founder of Laurel Networks.

"There were really two areas of the network that needed to be addressed to deliver video," he said. "That's the access component as well as the B-RAS. With ECI, we're in a stronger position to address that because we can address both sides."

Geographically, the merger is a solid fit. ECI, which has a 6.1% global market share in the DSLAM market in the first quarter, according to broadbandtrends.com, has had its greatest traction with European and Asian carriers, but has yet to break into the U.S. market in a significant way. Laurel, by contrast, sees its strength as being in the North American market, though Vogelsang pointed out that the company has reference customers in Asia and Europe.