What just happened? Two of the internet's most popular online services – Ookla's Speedtest and Downdetector – are being sold to IT consultant and services provider Accenture as part of a deal worth $1.2 billion in cash. Owner Ziff Davis has agreed to sell its entire connectivity division so the company can focus on its core websites such as IGN and Mashable.
The deal, which includes Ekahau and RootMetrics and all of their assets, comes more than a decade after Ziff Davis bought Ookla for $15 million in 2014 – it bought RootMetrics in 2016.
Ekahau is used to design, measure, and troubleshoot wireless networks. RootMetrics is a mobile-network testing and analytics brand that measures real-world cellular performance.
Accenture says it plans to integrate Ookla's data products into its own services, helping Communications Service Providers (CSPs), hyperscalers, and enterprises optimize mission-critical Wi-Fi and 5G networks.
Accenture framed the acquisition as an AI-era move, arguing that network telemetry has become "business-critical" as companies push more workloads to the edge and try to keep latency down for real-time apps.
The consultancy says it wants to fold Ookla's benchmarking and incident data into end-to-end "network intelligence" offerings, so clients can spot problems faster, validate upgrades, and better target infrastructure spend.
Accenture notes that Ookla captures more than 1,000 attributes per test and sees over 250 million consumer-initiated tests each month, alongside controlled drive, walk, and embedded testing. It adds that Ookla employs roughly 430 experts who specialize in software engineering, radio frequency engineering, and data science.
Ziff Davis, meanwhile, is cashing out at a price that makes its earlier Ookla purchase look like the deal of the decade. Reuters reports that the Connectivity division brought in $231 million last year (around 16% of Ziff Davis' total revenue), and the company plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes and in accordance with its debt agreements. The transaction is expected to close in the coming months, pending the usual conditions and regulatory approvals.
For everyday users, Speedtest and Downdetector should continue doing what they always have: one measuring how fast your ISP is (or isn't), the other confirming if your favorite service really is down and not just your router. But once they sit inside a services giant, expect the flashier innovation to land on the enterprise side first, where Accenture can charge for dashboards, benchmarking, and optimization work.