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| Company type | Limited company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1921 |
| Headquarters | , Italy |
Key people |
|
| Products | ICT |
Number of employees | 1,200 |
| Website | italtel |
Italtel (since 1981; formerly known by other names) is an Italian multinational ICT company founded in 1921, originally as a branch of Siemens AG.
As of 2024, Italtel's shareholders are Nextalia SGR (54%), Clessidra Capital Credit Fund (28%) and TIM (18%).
The company designs and implements networks, solutions and services for digital transformation, created by integrating technologies developed in its own laboratories or by its partner ecosystem, with system integration skills and solid software development capabilities.
The technological areas that Italtel addresses are the evolution of networks and 5G, hybrid cloud, cyber security, tools for agile working, Analytics and Automation applied to networks and services, the Internet of Things in areas such as digital health, manufacturing, smart cities.
Target markets are: Telco & Media, Industry & Manufacturing, Energy & Transport, Banking & Insurance, Healthcare and Public Administration.
Italtel played a major role in the development of telecommunication systems in Italy, most notably as one of the main equipment providers for the Italian state monopoly telephone operator SIP (later Telecom Italia) and as the leading actor in the evolution of the Italian PSTN from analog to digital switching (enabled by Italtel's CT, TN, and UT systems in the 1980s).[1] At its maximum prosperity, the company grew to over 30.000 employees.[2]
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 IP networks, Next-generation networks, and VoIP,[4] and expanding its customer base to other telecommunication service providers (both national and abroad), public administration, and non-telco companies. In this process, Italtel established a partnership with Cisco Systems (becoming a Cisco Gold Certified Partner[5]) and opened offices in 25 countries worldwide, mostly in Europe and South America.[4][6] In the early 2000s, Italtel and Cisco played a leading role in another major evolution of the Italian telephone network, namely the creation of a national structure that allowed for most long-range telephone traffic to be transferred from the PSTN to an IP network (implemented by Italtel softswitches and Cisco media gateways).[7]
In 2013, Gartner Inc. has classified Italtel as a "visionary" player in the Magic Quadrant for Session border controller design, a title that is usually given to small companies that have a distinguished completeness of vision.[8]
- ^ C. Mossotto, L'evoluzione della commutazione
- ^ a b 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 «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