CommScope and Arris are merging in a $7.4 billion deal that, they say, will create a combined company with expertise in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and position it to succeed in the 5G era.

There's not much overlap in their respective product lines, so the deal, and the price CommScope Inc. is paying for Arris Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRS), has caused some head-scratching. Did CommScope need Arris more than Arris needed CommScope? (See CommScope Puts Up $7.4B for Arris, CommScope/Arris Deal More About Dollars Than Strategic Sense – Analyst and Why CommScope Wooed Arris.)

Even as ink on the deal was still drying, we pondered what this means for the future of Arris's set-top box business.

"These days, scale has been kind of the name of the game, from the service provider standpoint, as well as the vendors... bigger is better," Jeff Baumgartner, senior editor at Light Reading, said. "CommScope's business has been struggling a bit... and they've been trying to evaluate what to do and how to get into some adjacent markets."

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— Phil Harvey, US News Editor, Light Reading