Telecom Technology: Spring 2026 Report

The FOCUS Telecom Technology Index (TTI) enjoyed yet another strong performance in our Spring 2026 reporting period. The sector was up 8.5% in the past three months, which compares extremely favorably to both the S&P 500 (up 0.4%) and the NASDAQ (down 3.0%). The situation is similar for the full year period. The TTI gained 36.7% over the past year compared to a 15.5% gain in the S&P 500 and a 20.3% gain in the NASDAQ. Sector multiples are also trending upwards. The TTI closed out the period with a revenue multiple of 4.3x and an EBITDA multiple of 21.3x. Both of these are higher than year-ago multiples for the sector of 3.6x revenue and 18.4x EBITDA.

The Broadband Access and Transport sub sector was once again the best performing sub sector in the TTI this period. The sub sector followed up a gain of more than 80% in our last report with a gain of 60.1% in the current reporting period. This means that the Broadband Access and Transport sub sector is now up 260.5% year-over-year, making it the TTI’s top performing sub sector over this time frame by a wide margin. There were two additional sub sectors in the TTI that stood out this period in terms of positive performance. The first was the Test and Measurement sub sector, which gained 53.3%.This was chiefly the result of a 65.6% gain at Viavi, but Anritsu was also up over 25% as well. In addition, the Broadband Wireless sub sector turned in a gain of 31.2%, largely driven by an increase at Ubiquiti Networks of 31.5%.On the negative side, steep losses at Lumine Group and Subex helped drive the OSS/BSS Software sub sector into the red with a return of negative 12.4%. This made it the worst performing sub sector in the TTI this period. The other sub sector in negative territory over the past three months was Unified Communications and the Contact Center, which suffered a loss of 8.3%. Losses in this sub sector were broad-based, with six of the eight companies trading down this period.

The Telecom Technology sector picked up quite a bit in terms of the volume of M&A transactions with 21 announced deals in the past three months. Total announced transaction dollar value came in at a relatively low, but still respectable, $1.1 billion. Enterprise Networking was the most active sub sector with eight transactions for the period.The largest of these was the LogicMonitor acquisition of network monitoring company Catchpoint for $250 million.Other active areas within the Enterprise Networking sub sector were SD WAN and IoT, each of which accounted for two transactions. The OSS/BSS Software sub sector was also active with six total transactions. The two largest announced transaction dollar values in this space were the Lumine Group’s acquisition of SynchronOSS Technologies for $262 million and the Helios Investment Partners take-private transaction of Tecnotree for $168 million. We also noted that serial acquirer Connectbase purchased Cloudage, a provider of spend management solutions for telecom service providers.In the Broadband Access and Transport sub sector, the most noteworthy transaction was the acquisition of subsea transport systems vendor Xtera by Prysmian. Finally, the Unified Communications and Contact Center sub sector saw four transactions this period. These included the 8×8 acquisition of Maven Lab Engage, a platform for SMS marketing, and the SharpenCX acquisition of Ytel, a cloud-based provider of communications solutions for contact centers.

With 2025 now fully in the books, we can look back and count 60 total transactions for the year with a total announced transaction dollar value of $20.2 billion. Both of these figures were very similar to the levels that we saw for 2024.Viewed over a five-year time frame, the number of transactions in 2025 was a bit light, but total announced transaction dollar value was at the high end of what we typically see.

We had five transactions this period that had announced multiples. Of the two transactions in the OSS/BSS Software space with multiples, the Helios Investment Partners acquisition of Tecnotree traded for a solid 2.0x revenue multiple but a relatively low 5.2x EBITDA multiple. The Lumine Group’s acquisition of SynchronOSS Technologies had a lower revenue multiple of 1.5x, but the EBITDA multiple was higher at 7.8x.Moving to the Enterprise Networking sub sector, Digi International’s acquisition of IoT application software company Particle Industries had a revenue multiple of 2.5x. This was the highest revenue multiple for any transaction this period. Also in the Enterprise Networking sub sector, customer premise equipment vendor U-Media Communications went for multiples of 0.6x revenue and 5.4x EBITDA. Finally, Prysmian’s acquisition of Xtera was done at a multiple of 0.5x revenue.