Arris should pull in $675 million in sales in 2018 from its just-completed acquisition of the Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business from Broadcom, Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold estimated in note issued Friday.

RELATED: Arris Closes Ruckus Wireless Acquisition

That’s in the middle of Arris’s prior expectations that sales from the deal would contribute $650 million to $700 million next year. Leopold also expects the acquisition to contribute 27 cents to its 2018 earnings per share estimates.

Of Leopold’s estimated contribution next year, he sees $305 million coming from WLAN, $228 million from sales of campus switches, and $142 million for related services.

Leopold also reiterated a “Strong Buy” on Arris shares, and a price target of $38.

“We believe ARRIS’ stock is not adequately appreciated and believe the accretion along with improving diversification could help the stock,” he wrote.

Closing the deal didn’t do much for Arris’s stock today. Shares closed Friday at $29.68 each, down 29 cents (0.97%).

Leopold said he will reassess the firm’s assumptions on Arris following a call slated for December 14 that will provide an update on the acquisition.

Arris on Friday closed its acquisition of the Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business from Broadcom, an agreement that wraps up about two weeks after Broadcom completed its merger with Brocade.

RELATED: Broadcom Wraps Brocade Deal

Dan Rabinovitsj, previously COO of Ruckus Wireless, now heads a new Arris Enterprise Networks business segment. Ruckus Networks, an Arris company, will operate as a dedicated business under the Enterprise Networks unit. About 1,700 Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch Business employees are joining Arris. 

“Given the cult-like following around the Ruckus brand, we didn’t want to see that disappear for obvious reasons,” Rabinovitsj said in a video that Arris posted with him and Arris CEO Bruce McClelland. “What we’re doing with the brand actually creates exactly the right set-up, so going forward people will be associating …this is still the Ruckus brand in the enterprise market.”

The acquisition plunges Arris, which had been offering Ruckus products under a previous reseller agreement, more deeply into the wireless and mobile technology and services sector at a time when many of its top cable customers, including Comcast and Charter Communications, are likewise expanding into those service areas.

RELATED: CBRS Spectrum to Open Windoes of Opportunity for Cable Ops 

Arris announced its proposed $800 million acquisition of then-Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business in January. Closure of that deal hinged on the completion of the Broadcom-Brocade combination. 

Arris will host a call at 8 a.m. ET on Dec. 14 to provide an update on Ruckus Wireless.

Early, on the big priorities following the closure of the deal will focus on employees as well as Ruckus’s customers and channel partners, McClelland noted in the video.

Connecting with employees, he said, is key in “making sure we tap into the enthusiasm, making sure they understand what the strategy is, what we’re trying to accomplish, how they fit into that equation.”

Despite some speed bumps along the way, Broadcom Friday closed its acquisition of Brocade Communications, wrapping up a deal that also has significant implications for Arris.

The Broadcom-Brocade deal close paves the way for Arris to move ahead with its $800 million acquisition of Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX switch businesses. Arris’s play for those assets was contingent on Broadcom and Brocade getting their deal done.

RELATED: Arris Puts Up $800M for Ruckus Wireless, ICX Switch Biz

Arris’s part of the deal will enable the company to further expand into areas like education, public venues, enterprise and MDUs, and greatly enhance its wireless and mobile technology portfolios.

RELATED: Arris Raises Some New Ideas About Ruckus

Arris, which has been reselling Ruckus products since 2011, has previously said the acquisition will add about 1,600 employees, and will lead to a dedicated business unit that will be led by current Ruckus COO Dan Rabinovitsj.

Arris issued this statement Friday: "As previously announced, ARRIS’s agreement to acquire Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business from Broadcom was contingent on Broadcom’s closing its Brocade acquisition. Now that Broadcom has closed its acquisition of Brocade, ARRIS expects to complete the Ruckus acquisition promptly following completion of the transaction’s review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”).  The current CFIUS investigation period ends on November 30, 2017."

We look forward to soon welcoming the Ruckus team into the ARRIS family. Ruckus’ exceptional expertise and portfolio will provide us immediate diversification into the Enterprise market and build on ARRIS’s leadership position in networking and entertainment technology.

As for the deal that’s leading to Arris’s move, Brocade’s common stock will cease to be traded on Nasdaq, and the company will operate as an indirect subsidiary of Broadcom and be led by GM Jack Rondoni. 

The closing also gives Broadcom the ability to put more focus on its unsolicited bid for Qualcomm, whose board has already rejected the bid.

Arris’s proposed acquisition of Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX switch businesses has hit another snag.

That deal, which hinges on the closing of the merger of Brocade and Broadcom, is in a holding pattern again after Brocade and Broadcom withdrew and refiled their joint voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, following discussion with the CFIUS.

Brocade and Broadcom said the refiling was done to give CFIUS more time to review and analyze the proposed merger. CFIUS has also agreed to proceed directly to a 45-day investigation period, thereby shortening the customary 75-day CFIUS review period, Brocade said.

To allow for that additional time, Brocade and Broadcom also agreed to hold off exercising their right to terminate the merger agreement for failure to close the proposed acquisition by the November 1, 2017 end date under terms of the original agreement.

Brocade and Broadcom said they anticipate the acquisition to be completed by November 30, 2017, subject to clearance from CFIUS.

This follows another CFIUS-related delay that surfaced in July.

How this shakes out is important to Arris, which has agreed to pay $800 million for Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX switch businesses, a deal that will help to expand and shore up its wireless technology capabilities and product line.

RELATED: Arris Puts Up $800M for Ruckus Wireless, ICX Switch Biz

Arris acknowledged on Tuesday that the notice with CFIUS delays the closure of Arris’s deal, but added that Arris “remains committed to our acquisition and associated strategy.”

“By adding Ruckus, ARRIS will enhance its portfolio of networking technologies to enable constant connectivity in every environment, whether in or outside the home, in commercial verticals or small enterprises. This is an important milestone because our vision of a smart, simple connected world is one step closer,” Arris added.

In related news, Brocade said it has signed an agreement with Extreme Networks to directly divest its data center switching, routing and analytics business. The proposed transaction also hinges on the previously announced sale of that business by Broadcom to Extreme Networks following Broadcom's proposed acquisition of Brocade.

Arris said it remains confident that it will get its hands on Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless and ICX switch businesses despite a snag that could alter the anticipated timing.

Arris’s proposed $800 million play for that portion of Brocade hinges on the closing of the merger of Brocade and Broadcom, which has hit a bit of a speed bump.

RELATED: Arris Puts Up $800M for Ruckus Wireless, ICX Switch Biz

In an 8-K filed July 17, Brocade said it and Broadcom agreed to withdraw and re-file their joint voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to allow more time for review and discussion about the proposed acquisition. Once CFIUS accepts that joint voluntary notice, it will start a new 30-day review period, which may be followed by a 45-day investigation period.

“Brocade and Broadcom have been and will continue to be actively engaged with CFIUS during its review of the proposed acquisition. There can be no assurances, however, that CFIUS will ultimately agree that the parties may proceed with the proposed acquisition,” Brocade explained in the filing.

RELATED: Arris Raises Some New Ideas About Ruckus 

Under the terms of the merger deal, if the proposed deal is not completed on or before August 1, 2017, the deal could be terminated, though the companies have the ability to extend that date.

Brocade and Broadcom said they “remain fully committed to the proposed acquisition,” noting that the current expectation is that they’d complete the deal during Broadcom’s fiscal Q4, which ends Oct. 28, 2017.

How that shakes out is important to Arris, as the addition of Ruckus would help the company expand more deeply into wireless, a category that has become increasingly important to its cable operator customers. This week, Arris announced that Mediacom Communications had selected its hosted WiFi platform, which includes Ruckus products, for the MSO’s WiFi network rollout.

Here’s Arris’s statement on the matter:

“As previously mentioned, ARRIS’s agreement to acquire Brocade’s Ruckus business from Broadcom is contingent on Broadcom closing its acquisition of Brocade. We are aware that Broadcom and Brocade are undergoing a CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) review, and yesterday agreed to refile their notice to provide CFIUS more review time, given the transaction’s complexity. As a result, Broadcom and Brocade now expect the transaction to close before the end of their 4th fiscal quarters.

ARRIS remains confident that we will close the Ruckus acquisition shortly following that closing.”

RELATED: Arris CEO: Ruckus Buy a 'Pretty Big Deal' for US 

Shares in Ruckus Wireless jumped more than 31% in afternoon trading Monday after Brocade announced it had agreed to acquire the supplier of wireless gear and control systems that counts Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cablevision Systems among its WiFi technology clients.

Under terms of the deal Ruckus stockholders will receive $6.45 in cash and 0.75 shares of Brocade common stock for each share of Ruckus common stock. Based on the closing price of Brocade’s stock on April 1, 2016, the transaction values Ruckus at $14.43 per common share, or approximately $1.5 billion, though that number could fluctuate until the deal is closed. Net of estimated cash acquired, the transaction value is approximately $1.2 billion, they said.

Ruckus, which struck a global reselling deal with Arris in 2011, saw its shares soar on the news – its stock was up 31.60% ($3.16 each) to $13.16 each in afternoon trading. Brocade shares went into opposite direction -- they were down 13.96% ($1.49 each) to $9.15 each at last check. 

Brocade said the deal will complement its own enterprise networking portfolio with Ruckus’s “higher-growth wireless products” while strengthening Brocade’s strategic presence in the broader service provider space. Brocade said the deal will also help in its pursuit of emerging market opportunities around 5G, the Internet of Things, and LTE/WiFi convergence.

Ruckus competes in the WiFi arena with companies such as Cisco Systems and Ericsson, which acquired BelAir Networks in 2012.

The Ruckus organization will be led by current Ruckus CEO, Selina Lo, and report directly to Brocade CEO, Lloyd Carney, the companies said.  

Notably, Lo is scheduled to speak next Wednesday (April 13) at the CableLabs Inform[ed] Wireless event in New York in a session titled: “Evolution of Cable Networks and Mobile Opportunities”

"This strategic combination will position us to expand our addressable market and technology leadership with Ruckus’ fast-growing wireless LAN products, and supports our vision to deliver market-leading New IP solutions that enable the network to become a platform for innovation,”  Carney said in a statement.

"The combination of our two companies will create an exciting new thought leader in networking and significant opportunities for our stakeholders to participate in the combined company's future growth potential,” added Lo. "We operate in adjacent segments of the larger networking market with a number of common customers for our complementary products, and have a successful track record of working together.”

They said the deal, which has been approved by the boards of both companies, is expected to close in the third quarter of Brocade’s fiscal Q3.

Ruckus also announced updated Q1 2016 guidance. It expects total revenues of $98 million to $101 million, and non-GAAP diluted net income per share of $0.09 to $0.10. 

Ruckus Wireless said 5 Bars, a provider of high-capacity, wireless infrastructure for big public venues, has deployed the vendor’s WiFi tech for the 45,483-seat Angel Stadium of Anaheim, home to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

The new Ruckus-based network, owned and operated by 5 Bars, went live during Thursday night’s (October 2) game 1 of the American League Division Series (ALDS). 5 Bars has deployed more than 200 Ruckus ZoneFlex narrow beam and ZoneFlex sectorized beam outdoor access points around the venue’s “Big A,” and more than 100 high-capacity, three-stream Ruckus ZoneFlex indoor access points, all centrally managed by the vendor’s SmartCell Gateway 200 platform. Angel Stadium is also using the WiFi network for food concession operations, including 150 wireless-enabled, mobile cash registers and more than two dozen handheld point-of-sale devices.

Ruckus noted that stadium WiFi requires a sophisticated architecture and technology that confines WiFi signals to groups of fans in order to reduce media contention. The set-up at Angel Stadium relies on narrow beam, sectorized smart antennas integrated within Ruckus ZoneFlex access points in order to focus RF energy into a specific area, reducing the opportunity for interference while boosting network performance, Ruckus said.

Other large venues outfitted with Ruckus WiFi gear includes the 74,738-seat Estadio Jornalista Mario Filho in Rio de Janeiro; Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, NC; American Express Community Stadium, a 30,750-seat venue in Brighton, England (UK); and M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, a 70,000-seat facility in Chennai, India, among others.

Ruckus Wireless, a supplier that sells gear and software to Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, has expanded its family of 802.11ac-powered indoor and outdoor access points.

The expanded lineup includes the Ruckus ZoneFlex R500 (2x2:2) and ZoneFlex R600 (3x3:3) indoor dual-band (2.4/5 GHz) mid-range models, and new Ruckus ZoneFlex T300 Series outdoor 802.11ac access points – the ZoneFlex T300e omnidirectional model (pictured), which includes support for optional external 5 GHz antennas, and the ZoneFlex T301s 120 degree sectorized beam model with a sector adaptive antenna.

Ruckus’ new access points integrate the company’s patented BeamFlex technology, used to mitigate interference in “challenging RF environments,” and ChannelFly dynamic channel management technology, a predictive channel selection technique based on real-time capacity analysis of all RF channels.

Ruckus said the ZoneFlex R500 AP is tailored for medium density wireless networks in sites such as mid-size enterprises, hotels, and warehouses, as well as in retail stores. The Ruckus ZoneFlex R600 is designed for medium-to-high client density deployments such as enterprises, branch offices, retail locations,  classrooms and college campus networks, the company said.

The new ZoneFlex T300e and T301s APs for outdoor use, with the T300e well-suited for high-density deployments. Both models can be mounted on poles, street corners and rooftops.

The new Ruckus ZoneFlex R500 indoor 802.11ac AP has an MSRP of $645, while the Ruckus ZoneFlex R600 indoor 802.11ac AP carries and MSRP of $795.  The Ruckus ZoneFlex T300e outdoor 802.11ac AP fetches $1,395, and the new Ruckus ZoneFlex T301s outdoor AP carries a suggested price of $1,495.

Time Warner Cable said it has begun to light up a metro WiFi network in San Diego that encompasses more than 300 hotspots today, and will expand by “hundreds” more by the end of 2014.

The initial WiFi build in San Diego is focused on heavily populated areas in Carlsbad, Coronado, Del Mar, La Jolla, Mission Beach and Pacific Beach.

With the additions, TWC has installed more than 17,000 hotspots in Southern California, and more than 46,000 nationwide, thanks to deployments in parts of Austin, Texas; Kansas City; Hawaii; Charlotte, N.C.; and New York City.

TWC is also a member of a “Cable WiFi” roaming alliance that has deployed  more than 250,000 hotspots, and includes participation from Comcast, Cablevision Systems, Bright House Networks and Cox Communications.

“We know that being connected to the Internet wherever you are is a hugely important feature, so we’ll continue to invest to bring WiFi to areas where our customers live, work and play,” said Deborah Picciolo, SVP of operations for Time Warner Cable, in a statement. “It’s like taking your home Internet service with you. That’s why WiFi deployment continues to be a top initiative for Time Warner Cable and we are thrilled to be expanding to San Diego.”

TWC, which has historically sourced WiFi gear from Ericsson, Cisco Systems and Ruckus Wireless, has also been equipping its WiFi network with Hotspot 2.0 technology that supports cellular-like handoff capabilities.

A TWC official confirmed that the MSO is using Ruckus equipment for the San Diego buildout.

Offering an approach that it believes will provide some key aid to cable operator-driven WiFi deployment strategies, Ruckus Wireless has rolled out what it claims is the industry’s first carrier-class virtualized wireless LAN controller.

Ruckus, which sells WiFi gear to operators such as Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, said the approach will help carriers scale up their deployments by using this new cloud-based approach to WLAN management.

The approach also hits on a bigger trend – network functions virtualization (NFV), a budding approach that decouples the apps from the hardware, allowing operators to run those apps on off-the-shelf gear rather than pricier proprietary equipment.

Ruckus, said Steve Hratko, the company’s director of service provider marketing, is bridging NFV to the wireless LAN, believing it will play a big role in helping carriers deliver managed wireless services, including subscriber-based and cellular offload services, on a massive basis. Going virtual will allow operators to add capacity and management features without having to install and buy new physical appliances, he said.

Cable’s already got a big WiFi buildout underway. MSO members of the Cable WiFi roaming alliance (Comcast, Cablevision Systems, Bright House, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable) have already deployed more than 250,000 hotspots. Of that group, Comcast believes it will exceed 8 million managed, quasi-public WiFi hotspots when factoring in deployments in business locations, at outdoor venues and in customer-side gateways.

To scale up, the backend management systems for those need to become more centralized and virtualized, Hratko said, noting that Ruckus is using OpenStack to manage the new cloud-based infrastructure.

The first app Ruckus is tucking into the cloud is what it now calls its virtual SmartCell Gateway (vSCG), claiming that it can be configured to allow multiple service providers share an “instance” of the gateway setting them up to enable service level agreements on their own, rather than relying on a service offering from a vendor.

Under Ruckus’s model, service providers purchase a license for each instance of the vSCG deployed, and purchase additional licenses as more access points need to be supported. Starting in June, Ruckus said a perpetual software license for each instance of the vSCG will run $995, plus a perpetual license fee of $100 for each Ruckus ZoneFlex access point (the first device to support the vSCG) installed in each network.

Hratko said a global managed service provider with 15 data centers, 10,000 access points and more than 100,000 clients is currently testing the vSCG. Management of them all ties back to the company’s backend systems, he said. Among early adopters of the vSCG Frontiir, a managed service provider in Southeast Asia, and Global Gossip, a provider headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

Customers of Ruckus’s original, non-virtualized SCG include TWC, Suddenlink Communications, Bright House, Cablevision of Mexico, Sprint, AT&T, Telstra, SingTel, BskyB, Orange, and KDDI, among others.