Airvana, a company primarily known for powering the CDMA base stations of vendors like Alcatel Lucent and Nortel Networks, announced that it has acquired 3Way Networks, a U.K.-based developer of UMTS base stations for the burgeoning picocell and femtocell markets.

The acquisition comes as Airvana has been broadening its technology strategy toward fixed-mobile convergence, in-building solutions and universal gateways that provide access to core network services for UMTS, CDMA2000, Wi-Fi and other IP-based wireless devices.

"This is a logical step in both companies' evolution," said Simon Albury, managing director of 3Way Networks, in a statement. "We believe the acquisition validates our technology, and provides 3Way Networks with considerable resources and market reach."

Both 3Way Networks and Airvana have embraced a ‘flat' architecture that combines multiple functions of a radio access network into the base station for simpler deployment, greater reliability and lower cost, the statement said.

"Consumers increasingly want to make their mobile phone their primary phone", said Sanjeev Verma, founder and vice president of business development of Airvana. "With this acquisition and our existing [Universal Access Gateway] product, Airvana anticipates providing such a solution for UMTS subscribers."

Terms of the deal are undisclosed.