San Francisco  - Networking giant Cisco is to buy mobile equipment maker Starent in a 2.9 billion dollar deal, the company announced Tuesday.

The move will help Cisco expand into the increasingly important market for delivering data and videos over mobile phone networks and came less than two weeks after the Silicon Valley giant bought videoconferencing firm Tandberg for 3 billion dollars.

Cisco said it will pay 35 dollars per share for Starent, representing a 21 per cent premium over the company's stock price prior to the announcement of the deal.

"Cisco and Starent Networks share a common vision and bring complementary technologies designed to accelerate the transition to the mobile internet," said Pankaj Patel, senior vice president and head of the service provider branch.

"The network is the platform for service providers to launch, deliver and monetize the next generation of mobile multimedia applications and services," he said.

Cisco said the deal will close next year but will not begin adding to earnings until 2012. Upon completion of the deal Starent will become Cisco's new mobile internet technology group.

Starent Networks was founded in 2000 and completed its initial public offering in 2007. The company is based in Tewksbury, Massachusetts and has approximately 1,000 employees worldwide.

For 2008, Starent Networks reported revenue of 254.1 million dollars, up 74 per cent from the prior year.

The company makes infrastructure equipment used by wireless carriers to offer enhanced voice and data services such as video, multimedia messaging and internet service. Its main customer is the largest mobile carrier in the US, Verizon Wireless, which accounts for about 70 per cent of Starent sales.(dpa)