After snapping up Navtel Communications last week, EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering is set to acquire Brix Networks for about $28.5 million in cash. If Brix hits certain financial goals in the next year, the purchase price could rise to a total of $37.5 million.

EXFO is building up its network test operations. Navtel, which the company bought for about $11 million, provides test products for IMS and VoIP networks.

Brix Networks, meanwhile, has expertise in IP service assurance technology – for both VoIP and IPTV, in the form of a distributed, probe-based solution that measures quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE).

“The automated, real-time service assurance solutions provided by Brix Networks are increasingly becoming mission-critical for network service providers (NSPs), given the non-deterministic nature of IP networking and because the growing number of consumers adopting IP services is too widespread for NSPs to rely on expensive truck rolls to handle such tests,” said Germain Lamonde, EXFO’s chairman, president and CEO.

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