Vodafone agrees £1bn deal to buy Cable & Wireless Worldwide

Mobile operator says deal will be a boon for unified communications in business

UK mobile operator Vodafone is to buy Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) in a deal valued at £1.04bn.

The mobile operator said that the acquisition would strengthen its enterprise business in the UK and internationally.

"Vodafone has got the mobile network and CWW has an extensive fibre network, and combining the two provides a great opportunity for Vodafone in the enterprise space, with a focus on unified communications," a Vodafone spokesperson told Computing.

"More customers are looking to buy all of their communications from a single company and this will put us in a position to offer that," he added.

CWW offers access to business telecoms services through a combination of fibre, digital microwave radio and leased circuits. Its fibre network is 20,500km long.

Vodafone said that the network could also allow the mobile operator to offload data traffic to the CWW network, something that the mobile operator currently uses third parties for.

"As the demand for mobile data continues to grow strongly, the CWW fibre network can provide fast backhaul of data traffic at considerably lower cost compared to prevailing market rates for leased capacity," said Vodafone.

The company added that it will also save costs by combining UK procurement and rationalising network, IT and administrative functions.

Vodafone claimed that the acquisition would allow it to better serve the enterprise. "CWW has a good pedigree at delivering virtual private networks and hosting systems, and so in the countries where we have a presence it will bolster our ability to deliver these services," said the spokesperson.

Details about how the companies will be integrated will be released in the coming months.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2012.