please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . july 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message italtel type limited company industry telecommunications founded 1921 headquarters milan rome palermo italy key people tiziano onesti chairman stefano pileri ceo gerardo benuzzi coo products ict operating income 400m number of employees 1300 website italtel.com 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 . 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 contents 1 history 1.1 1900 1940s company beginnings 1.2 1948 1970s expansion during the economic boom 1.3 1980s leadership of marisa bellisario 1.4 1990s liberalization of the italian telephone market 1.5 italtel today 2 products 3 locations 4 references history edit 1900 1940s company beginnings edit the origins of italtel trace back to the societ italiana siemens per impianti elettrici siemens italian society 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 society changed to siemens societ anonima siemens s.a. siemens anonymous society with giovanni giamminola as the first ceo . siemens s.a. is usually considered as the first incarnation of italtel . 4 9 by this time the company was mainly operating as a commercial representative of siemens for 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 industries 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 industries were merged with siemens s.a. into siemens societ per azioni siemens s.p.a. siemens joint stock company with over 3000 employees . 1948 1970s expansion during the economic boom edit at the end of world war ii the german owned siemens s.p.a. was impounded to the ministero del tesoro department of the treasury . engineer aganippo brocchi who was placed at the head of the company in 1948 managed to bring it back to its pre war prosperity . 9 11 in 1950 the company was jointly acquired by sip and stet the financial services arm of the iri istituto per la ricostruzione industriale institute for industrial reconstruction a public holding company established to support the survival and development of industrial assets in italy . 9 during the italian economic miracle 1950s 1960s the leadership of siemens s.p.a. chose to focus on the booming telecommunications market and the company changed name to societ italiana telecomunicazioni siemens sit siemens with non telco activities being transferred to the newly established siemens elettra . 9 in the same period new production facilities were established in several places in italy including santa maria capua vetere in campania for the production of telephone devices settimo milanese near milan l aquila catania and carini palermo and the company grew to about 30.000 employees . 2 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 edit in the early 1980s sit siemens was the largest telco manufacturing company in italy but was also experiencing financial difficulties . in 1981 marisa bellisario formerly head of olivetti corporation of america was chosen as the new ceo . 14 bellisario was an appreciated self made enterpreneur who also had strategic connections to the government most notably bettino craxi leader of the italian socialist party and italian prime minister in 1983 1987 . she changed the name of the company to italtel and actuated a thorough renovation process which included replacing 70 % of the management 2 costs reduction and downsizing 15 and the establishment of several partnerships with other companies including cit alcatel siemens and apple . 2 under the leadership of bellisario italtel produced the ct tn and ut digital telephone exchanges which replaced analog with tdm digital switching allowing for a radical evolution of the italian pstn . italtel exchanges were installed all over italy . 1 15 in the same years italtel changed from a single company to a corporate group with italtel s.p.a. as the leader of the group . 12 16 bellisario and craxi also envisioned merging italtel with telettra another major italian telco manufacturing company to form telit a corporation that would supposedly have the potential to face up with the largest telco companies worldwide ; in 1988 anyway bellisario died and the plan was never realized . 15 1990s liberalization of the italian telephone market edit 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 state monopoly on telephony was abolished and the state owned operator sip was turned into a private company telecom italia . 19 at the same time as a consequence of the privatization of sip telecom italtel lost its position as sip s privileged equipment provider ; the alliance between italtel and at & t proved to be unsuccessful for both partners and was canceled in 1994 . 19 in 1995 stet initiated a joint venture with siemens for the control of italtel through a newly funded company called telsi . in this process siemens telecomunicazioni was merged into italtel . 19 in the late 1990s italtel ceded to siemens all its radio and mobile related activities and in turn siemens sold its 50 % share of telsi to telecom italia which thus ended up owning either directly or indirectly 100 % if italtel . 2 all these events severely weakened italtel which went through another major restructuring and downsizing process . the company shifted its core business towards voice over ip and network convergence technologies and was forced to look for new customers including so called olos other local operators foreign markets public administration and enterprises . 2 its number of employees fell to under 20.000 . italtel today edit after this in 1999 italtel tecnoelettrica projectation production and selling of circuits for telecommunications computers and automation is given to lares cozzi . 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 . workers become a little more than 3200 . italtel proceeds to acquisitions linked to ip networks and multimedia services . these purchases include societies as one ans for informatics advices and securmatics for informatics security . from 1999 the products offering concerns telephony on ip base with the i ssw product at first implemented on a proprietary hardware and on atca standard . when the partnership ends in 1999 italtel s.p.a. passes at 100 % to telecom italia which in 2000 gives the mayor part to clayton dubilier & rice and cisco systems . in 2000 italtel transfers a big part of the voice traffic of the operators on ip network . in 2016 italtel projects develops and realizes products and other solutions for networks and telecommunication services of new generation . products edit telephone set bigrigio siemens s62 1960s telephone set grillo 1974 a luxury model designed by richard sapper and marco zanuso 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 media gateway and 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 networks monitoring locations edit 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 edit 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 pi 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