Another week, another $3 billion acquisition by Cisco Systems.

On Tuesday, Cisco announced that it would pay $35 a share, or $2.9 billion, for Starent Networks, which makes products that help wireless telecommunications companies ship large volumes of data to phones and computing devices.

The deal represents about a 20 percent premium over Starent’s closing price on Monday of $29.03 a share. After the announcement, Starent’s shares rose $4.88, or almost 17 percent, to close at $33.91 on Tuesday.

For Cisco, the acquisition extends its bet that consumers and workers will keeping pulling down ever larger amounts of data onto smartphones and laptops over wireless networks. Starent’s hardware and software products make it possible to create and manage high-speed data services, and the company counts carriers like Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, Vodafone Group and China Telecom as customers.

“We have had a huge explosion in data traffic,” said Ned Hooper, Cisco’s chief strategy officer. “We expect the market for mobile data to double every year through 2013.”