Scientific Atlanta, Inc. was a

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, United States-based manufacturer of cable television, telecommunications, and broadband equipment. Scientific Atlanta was founded in 1951 by a group of engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and was purchased by

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

in 2005 for $6.9 billion after Cisco received antitrust clearance for the purchase. The Cisco acquisition of Scientific Atlanta was ranked in the top 10 of largest technology acquisitions in history and was Cisco's largest acquisition to date. Prior to the purchase, Scientific Atlanta had been a Fortune 500 company and was one of the top 25 largest corporations in Georgia. Scientific Atlanta was considered by many to be "the patriarch of Atlanta's technology industry for nearly six decades" and is sometimes referred to as "Atlanta's

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

or Hewlett Packard".

Products

Scientific Atlanta was a supplier of transmission networks for broadband access to the home, set-top cable boxes, cable modems and digital interactive subscriber systems for video, high-speed Internet, voice over IP (VoIP) networks, and worldwide customer service and support. Products for the cable TV industry, from

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...

network equipment for head-end media acquisition, to Explorer digital cable boxes (as well as

universal remote A universal remote is a remote control that can be programmed to operate various brands of one or more types of consumer electronics devices. Low-end universal remotes can only control a set number of devices determined by their manufacturer, whi ...

s to go with them), and

cable modems A cable modem is a type of network bridge that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC), radio frequency over glass (RFoG) and coaxial cable infrastructure. Cable modems are primari ...

(formerly branded as WebSTAR until the Cisco acquisition in 2006), dominate Scientific Atlanta's sales. Scientific Atlanta's most popular modem is the Scientific Atlanta 2100, because it is often supplied by cable providers like

Spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...

, Comcast,

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

and Cox Communications. Scientific Atlanta also supplies distribution technology to networks such as

Bloomberg Television Bloomberg Television (on-air as Bloomberg) is an American-based pay television network focusing on business and capital market programming, owned by Bloomberg L.P. It is distributed globally, reaching over 310 million homes worldwide. It is hea ...

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

and many others. In addition to providing products for traditional coaxial and fiber service operators, Scientific Atlanta also expanded its

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded med ...

solutions offerings after the merger with Cisco. Before this, on August 18, 2005, Scientific-Atlanta and SBC (now AT&T) signed a deal for Scientific-Atlanta to be the exclusive set-top provider for SBC U-verse TV.

History

Founded in October 1951 by six Georgia Tech Research Institute researchers: James E. Boyd (future station director), Charles Griffin, Robert E. Honer (MSEE), Gerald Rosselot (station director), Lamar Whittle and Vernon Widerquist who each invested $100. In late 1952 Glen P. Robinson became the seventh member. Scientific Atlanta was started to produce technology developed at the research station. After the fledgling company's first contract resulted in a $4,000 loss, Robinson bought out all but one of the original investors, and paid them each back their original $100. Glen P. Robinson was the CEO of Scientific Atlanta for 20 years, and chairman of the board for an additional eight years, until he retired from the company in 1979. Scientific Atlanta grew dramatically; it earned $3.1 million in revenue in 1962 and approximately $200 million when Robinson left.

Sidney Topol Sidney Topol (December 28, 1924 – March 30, 2022) was an American innovator and entrepreneur. He was a contributor to several key developments in the telecommunications industries in the latter half of the twentieth century. He was a graduate ...

served as its president from 1971–83, CEO from 1975–87, and chairman of the board from 1978-90. During his tenure, the company grew in sales to more than $600 million. During the 1970s the company developed the concept of cable/satellite connection, which, in working with HBO and transportable earth stations developed by

TelePrompTer Corporation __notoc__ TelePrompTer Corporation was an American media company that existed from approximately 1950 until 1981. The company was named for its eponymous primary product, a display device invented by Hubert Schlafly which scrolls text to people o ...

and manufactured by Scientific Atlanta, established satellite-delivered television for the cable industry. In 2000, the company sold its satellite ground station and satellite networking businesses to Viasat. In August 2002, the company laid off 6 percent of the company's total. In February 2003, Scientific-Atlanta introduced their first Explorer HD set-top box, which is capable of displaying

HDTV High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

programming, at Best Buy stores in the

Phoenix metropolitan area The Phoenix Metropolitan Area – also the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, or Metro Phoenix (known by most locals simply as “the Valley”) – is the largest metropolitan area in the Southwestern United States, centered on the city ...

. It was later rolled out nationwide. In March 2004, Scientific-Atlanta launched the Explorer 8000HD, their first set-top box with both DVR and HD. In the set-top arena, Scientific-Atlanta once enjoyed 100% market share with

Cablevision Cablevision Systems Corporation was an American cable television company with systems serving areas surrounding New York City. It was the fifth-largest cable provider and ninth-largest television provider in the United States. Throughout its ex ...

and

AT&T U-verse U-verse TV is a DirecTV brand of IPTV service. Launched on June 26, 2006, U-verse included broadband Internet (now AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber), IP telephone (now AT&T Phone), and IPTV (U-verse TV) services in 48 states.Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, while TWC and U-verse are split between SA/Cisco and competitor

Arris In architecture, an arris is the sharp edge formed by the intersection of two surfaces, such as the corner of a masonry unit; the edge of a timber in timber framing; the junction between two planes of plaster or any intersection of divergent a ...

(formerly

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

). Comcast also has a split account with the two companies. Other companies that have split accounts with SA and Arris are Suddenlink Communications,

Charter Communications Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. With over 32 million customers in 41 states, it is the second-largest cable operator in the United States by subscribe ...

and

Cox Cox may refer to: * Cox (surname), including people with the name Companies * Cox Enterprises, a media and communications company ** Cox Communications, cable provider ** Cox Media Group, a company that owns television and radio stations ** ...

; the two vendors also had split accounts for Adelphia before that company went under in 2006.

Pace plc Pace plc was a British company who developed set-top boxes (STBs), advanced residential gateways, software and services for the pay-TV and broadband services industry. Pace's customers included cable, telco, satellite and IPTV operators. Th ...

, who mainly competes in foreign markets, serves as a domestic rival, but on a limited scale. On November 18, 2005, Scientific Atlanta announced that it would be purchased by

in a US$6.9 billion cash deal. On February 25, 2006, Cisco Systems announced that it had completed acquisition of Scientific Atlanta in a cash deal that paid $43 per share. The total cash value of the deal was roughly US$7 billion, or US$5.1 billion net of Scientific Atlanta's cash balance, and also about US$5.1 billion over their 2005

shareholders' equity In finance, equity is ownership of assets that may have debts or other liabilities attached to them. Equity is measured for accounting purposes by subtracting liabilities from the value of the assets. For example, if someone owns a car worth $2 ...

. In its fiscal year 2005, Scientific Atlanta earned $1.36 per common share (diluted). On November 21, 2015, Cisco completed sale of its Connected Devices Business Unit (CDBU) to

Technicolor SA Vantiva SA, formerly Technicolor SA, Thomson SARL, and Thomson Multimedia, is a French multinational corporation that provides creative services and technology products for the communication, media and entertainment industries. Vantiva's headq ...

. This business was comprised primarily by customer premises equipment (CPE) related hardware and software that had originated at Scientific Atlanta, including set top boxes, cable gateways / modems, CableCard devices, digital transport adapters, wireless video access points, network extenders, accessories and eleven software products related to these offerings.http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac49/ac0/ac1/ac259/docs/connected-devices.pdf The company was honored at the 2008 Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for development of interactive video on demand infrastructure and signaling, leading to large scale VOD implementations.

References

External links

Scientific Atlanta official site
{{Authority control Companies based in Gwinnett County, Georgia Computer companies established in 1951 Computer companies disestablished in 2015 Cisco Systems acquisitions Defunct computer companies of the United States 1951 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) 2015 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state) American companies established in 1951 2006 mergers and acquisitions Telecommunications equipment vendors