Wikipedia
Italtel Ltd. (since 1981; formerly known by other names) is an Italian telecommunications equipment and ICT company founded in 1921, originally as a branch of Siemens AG. It 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). At its maximum prosperity, the company grew to over 30.000 employees.
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.
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, 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) and opened offices in 25 countries worldwide, mostly in Europe and South America. 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 backbone 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).
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.