Silicon Valley-based technology giant Cisco announced on Tuesday a plan to buy mobile-infrastructure equipment maker Starent for about $2.9 billion. The announcement comes about two weeks after Cisco announced its intent to buy Norwegian video conferencing firm Tandberg for about $3 billion.

"We are very pleased that Starent Networks will be joining the Cisco team, and we believe their products and engineering talent will greatly benefit our service provider customers as they build out their mobile Internet offerings,"Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers said in a statement. Both Cisco and Starent boards approved the deal, expected to close in the first half of 2010.

"Combining Cisco's strength in video and IP with Starent Networks'leading mobile infrastructure solutions, creates a compelling portfolio of products that provides an integrated architecture to offer rich, quality multimedia experiences to mobile subscribers on 3G and 4G networks,"Starent President and CEO Ashraf Dahod said in a statement.

Tewksbury, Mass.-based Starent provides multimedia intelligence, core network functions and services to manage access from any 2.5G, 3G, and 4G radio network to a mobile operator's packet core network. The nine-year-old firm's technology is deployed in CDMA2000 (1X, EV-DO), UMTS/HSPA and WiMax networks.

Once the transaction is complete, Starent will become Cisco's new Mobile Internet Technology Group with Dahod at the helm. The companies will continue operating separately before then.