Motorola Cable Box

The nation’s largest cable service provider, Comcast, is investing $150 million in cable box manufacturer Arris, the companies announced today.

Last month, Arris purchased the Motorola Home division from Google for $2.35 billion. And since Motorola Home supplies a good chunk of cable boxes for Comcast subscribers, it makes sense that the cable giant would have an interest in Arris.

Under terms of the deal, Arris will sell 10.6 million shares of stock to Comcast for a 7.85 stake. Google, which previously owned about 15 percent of Arris, will get $150 million for a reduced stake equal to Comcast.

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Comcast will also take a more active role in working with Arris on its cable/video box strategy going forward. Hopefully, that means many cable subscribers can look forward to better set-top boxes with more functionality than the current selection offers.

Wall Street took the news well, giving Arris’ stock a 3.55% percent increase at the time of this posting.

Photo by Tom Cheredar

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