Cisco Systems Inc. on Friday staked a $6.9 billion claim on the world's living rooms.

The San Jose, Calif.-based maker of Internet routing gear is betting that its agreement this week to purchase Scientific-Atlanta Inc. will bolster its bid to control how music, movies and other data move around the house.

Georgia-based Scientific-Atlanta builds set-top boxes for cable television companies. Cisco's all-cash purchase follows its 2003 acquisition of Linksys, which makes home networking equipment, and represents the former tech titan's biggest push into the consumer market.

Dozens of companies — from Microsoft Corp. to TiVo Inc. — are eyeing the living room as the next technological frontier. They envision the day that people will be able to call up any movie, TV program or song on the Internet and have it delivered to their stereos or televisions.

"A lot of guys are trying to come up with the home device which combines your digital music, mp3s, your home videos, your TV, and maybe your cell phone," said J.P. Morgan analyst Ehud Gelblum.

Gelblum said the set-top box was a strong candidate to win in that race. It will stand a much better chance, he said, when such boxes aren't just provided by the cable companies and competition intensifies.

"A couple of years down the road and you'll be able to buy it at Best Buy," Gelblum said. "That's when the size of the market explodes."

A high-flier during the dot-com boom, Cisco built its fortune and reputation on the equipment that directs Internet traffic. But its growth slowed and its stock price slumped as Internet start-ups failed and demand for new gear cooled.

Nonetheless, Cisco had more than $13 billion in cash on hand at the end of its first fiscal quarter, which ended Oct. 29. That cash has enabled it to weather the downturn and make acquisitions.

Analysts said Cisco's purchase gives it the opportunity to build the same sort of infrastructure it built for the Internet — only smaller.

"The television set-top box is positioned to become the nerve system of the home network," said SunTrust analyst Chris Rowen. "This gives them better capability."

Current versions of Scientific-Atlanta boxes don't connect with Cisco's Linksys gear, but analysts said future versions could be set up to transmit information that comes in through cable lines.

Although more studios are releasing video-on-demand services over the Internet, there hasn't been a simple way to watch that material from the couch, said analyst Stewart Wolpin of Points North Group, a research firm whose clients including Comcast Corp. and Disney Co.

"By putting a Net connection inside the cable box," he said, "it starts the process of making all of that content available on home televisions."

Some analysts see it as a potentially risky move for Cisco, which has traditionally acquired small, local and privately held companies since its founding in 1984. The closest, in terms of purchase price, was the 1999 purchase of Cerent Corp., also for $6.9 billion.