Italtel
This article needs additional citations for verification. (July 2016) |
Company type | Limited company |
---|---|
Industry | Telecommunications |
Founded | 1921 |
Headquarters | , Italy |
Key people |
|
Products | ICT |
€400m | |
Number of employees | 1,300 |
Website | italtel |
Italtel Ltd. (since 1981; formerly known by other names) is an Italian
In the 1980s–1990s, Italtel experienced a period of crisis and downsizing due to major changes in its reference market (including the abolishment of the state monopoly and the privatization of SIP/Telecom), a situation that was further exacerbated by an unsuccessful merger leveraged buyout at the beginning of the 2000s.[2][3]
The company then gradually repositioned itself as a player in the international ICT market, focusing on technologies such as
In 2013,
History
1900–1940s: Company beginnings
The origins of Italtel trace back to the Società Italiana Siemens per Impianti Elettrici ("Siemens Italian Company for Electrical Plants"), the Italian branch of German Siemens AG, founded in Milan on 5 December 1898. After World War I, on 21 July 1921, the company name changed to Siemens Società Anonima (Siemens S.A., "Siemens Anonymous Society"), with Giovanni Giamminola as the first CEO. Siemens S.A. is usually considered the first incarnation of Italtel.[4][9]
By this time, the company was mainly operating as a commercial representative of Siemens in Italy.[9] This gradually changed in the late 1920s, when Siemens began to expand its manufacturing presence in Lombardy and Italy through the acquisition of small manufacturers (most notably Officine Isaria Contatori Elettrici, an electricity meter producer) as well as the establishment of new ones, such as OLAP (Officine Lombarde Apparecchi di Precisione) which produced telephones, pneumatic tubes, radio receivers, and other electrical appliances.[10] In 1942, Isaria, OLAP and other small companies were merged with Siemens S.A. into Siemens Società per Azioni (Siemens S.p.A., "Siemens joint-stock company"), with over 3000 employees.
1948–1970s: Expansion during the economic boom
At the end of
In the 1970s, during the so-called Years of Lead (an era of socio-political turmoil in Italy), Sit-Siemens was involved in several terrorist acts performed by the Red Brigades,[12] including their first kidnapping.[13]
1980s: Leadership of Marisa Bellisario
In the early 1980s, SIT-Siemens was the largest telco manufacturing company in Italy, but was also experiencing financial difficulties. In 1981,
1990s: Liberalization of the Italian telephone market
In 1989, with the sponsorship of Prime Minister Romano Prodi, STET signed for a joint venture between Italtel and AT&T, with 20% of Italtel being acquired by AT&T. This was the conclusion of a long negotiation process which also involved Alcatel, Siemens and Ericsson as potential alternatives to AT&T. The agreement between AT&T and Italtel included a non-compete clause whereby Italtel would maintain its leadership role in the Italian telephone exchange market.[17][18]
In the early 1990s, the
Into the 21st century
After this, in 1999, Italtel Tecnoelettrica (design, production and retail of circuits for telecommunications, computers and automation) is given to Lares Cozzi in 1990. The multimedia activities (research, production and fixing of decoders for Stream TV and telephones, maintenance and fixing of the commutation centrals in the structure of Santa Maria Capua Vetere) are sold to Finmek-Access Media; Italtel Systems (project, maintenance and installation of telecommunications systems for Italtel) is sold to a group of companies guided by Tecneudosia. The workforce is reduced to slightly more than 3,200.
Italtel proceeds to acquisitions linked to IP networks and multimedia services. These purchases include One Ans for IT consulting and Securmatics for system security. After 1999 product offering focuses on telephony over IP base with the i-SSW product, at first implemented on a proprietary hardware and on
In 2000, Italtel transfers a big part of the voice traffic of the operators on IP network. As of 2016 Italtel designs, develops and manufactures products and other solutions for new generation networks and telecommunication services.
Products
Notable products include:
- Siemens S62 (1962): also known as Bigrigio ("Bi-grey", as it originally came in two different shades of grey), S62 was the first desk telephone set to be distributed nationwide by SIP as the default handset for its subscribers. It became the most common set in Italy across the 1960s-1980s.[20]
- Grillo (1960s): a luxury telephone set designed by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper, winner of the Compasso d'Oro award for design in 1967.[21]
Current products include:
- Embrace: Web-Communication solution based on WebRTC
- NetMatch-S: Session Border Controller (SBC) for user–network interface (UNI) and network-to-network interface(NNI)
- NetMatch-M/B: border gateway for the interconnection of media streams (TDM-IP and IP-IP)
- i-MCS: Call Control product including principal functions of Core network in NGN and IMS scenery
- i-TDS: proprietary database for NGN and IM-HSS solutions
- i-RPS: Routing and Policy product centralized on IP networks
- i-QAC/i-NES: products for QoS/QoE optimization and IP network monitoring
Locations
Italtel's headquarter is in Castelletto di Settimo Milanese, near Milan. Other Italian offices are located in Rome, Carini (near Palermo) and Marghera (near Venice). Italtel also works in Europe, Latin America and North America, where a new office in Miami (Florida) opened in 2016.
References
- ^ a b C. Mossotto, L'evoluzione della commutazione
- ^ a b c d e f g M. Cuzzetta, La crisi e il risanamento di impresa: il caso di Italtel
- ^ «Repubblica», Più aziende e meno telco nel futuro di Italtel
- ^ a b c «Repubblica», Italtel festeggia i novantanni di industria
- ^ Cisco official site, Partner locator
- ^ Italtel official site, "Where We Are"
- ^ Telecom Italia, Il Decommissioning della rete e dei servizi PSTN/ISDN
- ^ «PR Newswire», Italtel positioned in the "visionaries" quadrant for session border controllers
- ^ a b c d e Lombardia Beni Culturali, Italtel SpA (company history)
- ^ Siemens official site, History of Siemens in Italy
- ^ «L'Arena di Pola» nr. 1229 (21 June 1960), Ingegner Brocchi, presidente della STIPEL
- ^ a b Sistema Informativo Unificato per le Soprintendenze Archivistiche, Italtel
- ^ R. Lumley, States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978, (London: Verso, 1990) p.282.
- ^ Treccani, L'imprenditoria femminile nell'Italia Unita
- ^ a b c «Corriere.it», Milano e un sogno chiamato Italtel
- ^ "ISEC (Istituto per la Storia dell'Età Contemporanea), Fondo archivio storico Italtel" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 September 2016. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
- ^ «Repubblica», Italtel-AT&T: c'è la firma
- ^ «Los Angeles Times», AT&T and Italtel Sign Broad Pact
- ^ a b c Franco Russolillo, Storia dell'IRI
- ^ Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Telefono automatico a batteria centrale (BCA) S62
- ^ SAN (Sistema Archivistico Nazionale), Italtel, Telefono Grillo, disegno tecnico, 1974