British telecom giant Vodafone agreed to pay €7.2 billion ($10 billion) to acquire Spanish cable operator Ono, which counts 1.2 million subscribers and 7.2 million homes passed.

Vodafone said the deal, which comes about three weeks after it closed the $130 billion sale of its 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon ( NYSE: VZ ), will accelerate its unified communications strategy.  "There is also a significant opportunity to cross-sell Ono's high quality broadband, fixed telephony and pay-TV offerings to Vodafone's existing customers," Vodafone said in Monday's announcement, which had been rumored for weeks.

A Vodafone acquisition of Ono could help RDK Management LLC--a joint venture between Comcast ( Nasdaq: CMCSA ), Time Warner Cable ( NYSE: TWC ) and Liberty Global ( Nasdaq: LBTYA )--license the RDK (reference design kit) software stack to Ono. German cable operator Kabel Deutschland, which was acquired by Vodafone in October, announced last month that it had licensed the RDK.

If Vodafone continues to shop for more cable system acquisitions, it could compete with John Malone's Liberty Global, which is the largest cable system owner in Europe. Vodafone could also attempt to acquire Liberty Global, Macquarie Equities analyst Amy Yong predicted in a research note last fall.

But Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries told attendees at the Cable Congress conference in Amsterdam last week that the company hasn't received an offer from Vodafone. "It is not easy to swallow our business," Fries said, noting that Liberty ahs an enterprise value of $80 billion. "It is not easy to assume someone will make that move," he added.

Ono is one of the largest service provider customers of TiVo ( Nasdaq: TIVO ), and was one of the first cable operators to market TiVo hardware as a primary DVR solution.

For more:
- see the release
- and FierceWireless:Europe 's coverage
- The Wall Street Journal has this story about Liberty Global