Telit Company Profile

Telit Wireless Solutions is a global leader in the field of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications and subsidiary of Telit Communications PLC (AIM: TCM). Telit develops, manufactures and markets M2M modules which enable machines, devices and vehicles to communicate via wireless networks. The company is a fast-growing wireless M2M company achieving steadily increasing sales in the last four years, addressing a €20+ billion market growing, and representing substantial business potential. From its corporate headquarters in Rome (Italy), regional headquarters in EMEA (Trieste, Italy), North America (Raleigh, NC, USA), Latin America (São Paulo, Brazil), and APAC (Seoul, Korea), and a wide network of sales offices, Telit provides global sales, logistics, manufacturing and support to its customers worldwide.

History

Two decades of experience across the globe have helped the company establish strong channels and unfettered access to key players in all major world markets. From its beginnings in 1986 as Telital and Telital automotive, an engineering company providing research and development services to multinational telecoms, Telit emerged as one of the leading names in innovative cellular technology. In 1997, the company began manufacturing and marketing products under the Telit brand. Since then, millions of cellular handsets and other mobile communications devices such as the first Globalstar satellite mobile phone have been supplied to users and operators worldwide.

Telit recognized early on the potential of cellular M2M solutions and launched its first M2M module called Datablock in 1998. Allowing real-time monitoring and control, minimizing or dispensing with human intervention, M2M is gaining significant market traction as it addresses the ever-increasing demands, e.g. in terms of speed, savings, safety, environmental protection, localization, remote control, accuracy and many others in the business world.

M2M Is About Enabling - It Enables Other Segments And Applications

M2M is a technology that has evolved over the course of just a few years and yet has become indispensable for many industries. According to Beecham Research, the market had reached a volume of more than 50 billion US Dollar even by 2008. And the prospects for growth are excellent: In 2012, the market volume is set to rise five-fold to 250 billion US Dollar.[1]

The chief value of M2M is to enable applications that allow businesses to enhance productivity and competitiveness through increased efficiencies, cost-savings, and improved levels of service.

  • Connecting machines to other machines - e.g. remote production environments.
  • Connecting machines to service centers - e.g. vehicles that automatically notify service centers of maintenance issues.
  • Connecting service centers to machines - e.g. vending machines that report the stock status to a central inventory system.
  • Connecting individuals or vehicles to machines - e.g. indicating their geographical position for enhanced personal security.

M2M applications can be found in a wide range of industries and sectors including vending machines, automated meter reading (AMR), point-of-sales (POS)-terminals, transport and logistics, pay-as-you-drive, telematics, healthcare, ecurity technology and a wealth of other vertical segments.

A fair number of vendors presently offer M2M modules or industry-specific solutions. Additionally, the demands on M2M modules are steadily increasing - requiring substantial added versatility in use. The integration of complementary technologies such as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and ZigBee at module level is constantly gaining increasing importance while the demand for small and compact modules for terminals geared towards the consumer market are also steadily growing (e.g. vital-sign monitoring, localization and alerts for people with health conditions, and personal navigation).

Telit's Core Values:

Reliability, Quality and Customer Orientation

Telit Wireless Solutions is famous for its four core values that play a key role in ensuring the customer's success: business scalability, ease of integration, investment protection, and world class quality.

These key competencies are represented by a wide range of advantages and services that Telit offers to its customers. One example embodying these principles is the unique family concept which provides customers with maximum compatibility with all cellular wireless technologies.

Telit's Unique Product Family Concept

Telit is, to date, the only M2M supplier to offer its customers a form factor and family concept. The product families are tailored to different levels of integration and volumes according to application size and production scale. All modules of one family have the same size and shape, the same connectors or Ball Grid Array (BGA) and the same software interface so that that they can be integrated and exchanged easily into existing customer designs with only minimal adaptation. As a result, customers benefit from modules that can be used for years in their applications. They avoid additional development outlay and thus protect their previous development investments.

Cellular and Short-Range Solutions From a Single Source

In 2008, Telit made a strategic move from a "cellular M2M" solutions provider to a "wireless M2M" solutions provider, including Short Range RF technologies in its product offering. Being the only M2M supplier worldwide to offer all relevant wireless technologies in its product portfolio, Telit provides its customers with tailored solutions from a single source. The company develops, manufactures and markets a wide range of enterprise communication modules:

Cellular Technologies

GSM/GPRS modules

UMTS/WEDGE/HSDPA modules

CDMA modules

Short-Range Technologies

Wi-Fi modules

ZigBee

Short Range RF (proprietary mesh/point-to-point for unlicensed frequency bands)

Short Range to GSM/GPRS

Wireless MBus

GPS M2M modules

Telit's R&D Competence

Another plus for Telit's customers is the access to a gamut of lab resources for testing their end products, preparing them for official certification procedures. As a former manufacturer of mobile telephones, Telit has extensive knowledge and equipment for preparation of virtually all common international testing procedures such as R&TTE/FCC, CE/UL and GCF/PTCRB. This increases the probability of a successful certification process, done right the first time. Telit's R&D centers are located in:

Trieste (Italy): Telit's Trieste R&D facility is the company's main engineering, design & development facility, and headquarters for the global R&D function. Trieste focuses its braintrust in the advancement of GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and GPS technologies.

Cagliari (Italy) & Sophia Antipolis (France): These two R&D centers are the primary competence centers for other wireless technologies and special projects. This facilities investigate short-range wireless, satellite, and other emerging technologies for integration into the corporate portfolio roadmap.

Seoul (Korea): Telit's APAC R&D center is located in Seoul, South Korea, and is the main development site for the company's CDMA, WCDMA, and UMTS projects. It is also Telit's center of competence for automotive specific products and rugged design technologies.

All in all, customers benefit from a short time to market while at the same time enjoying a reduced total cost of ownership and time-to-market. Telit modules are priced to make them attractive for a wide variety of business cases. Every module addresses distinct application groups such as telematics, fleet management and AMR, security, POS, and others.

 

The Telit Infinita Services

As one of the first players to do so, Telit has enhanced its existing service portfolio with a new service concept: the Telit Infinita Services. The primary target of this offering is the simplification of the M2M solution deployment and maintenance of software devices. The initial set of Telit Infinita Services feature both Premium FOTA Management with Extended Software Warranties and an Extended Hardware Warranty service.

Premium FOTA Management: The integrated Premium FOTA Management solution is delivered via the RedBend vCurrent® Mobile Client agent, a proven, widespread technology powering hundreds of millions of cellular handsets world-wide. The firmware upgrade process is based on a patented algorithm sending only the "delta" of changes in the firmware. The recovery system allows resetting the module to the previous software version in case of problems during the update. Additionally, new features required by the application developer can be remotely deployed to the units over-the-air, quickly and reliably. Since product lifecycles on the M2M market are between five and ten years, this upgrade functionality is particularly important. Premium FOTA Management therefore significantly reduces the need for physical updates in the field to zero and therefore helps to optimize the total cost of ownership. Telit Premium FOTA Management Services are available for all GSM/GPRS Telit products powered with software version 7.03 or higher.

Extended Hardware Warranty: The Extended Hardware Warranty scheme addresses the increasingly complex requirements of M2M applications. This gives customers the option of extending their hardware warranty by up to four years and helps them to extend the lifetime of their M2M products while protecting their investments and saving money. Extended Hardware Warranty Services are available for all Telit products.

Unlike many of its competitors, Telit developed its own protocol stack both with GSM/GPRS and short-range network protocols. Telit has invested a total of over 400 man-years in the ongoing development of this software platform. As the sole proprietor of its module software, Telit can work with its customers to align modules with the requirements of individual applications or markets in the shortest possible time. The flexibility afforded by the total control over the protocol stack, the most critical software component in the makeup of the module architecture, allows Telit to respond quickly to individual needs, while customers benefit from the rapid market launch of their products.


[1] "The Internet of Things: Worldwide M2M Market Forecast", Beecham Research 2008.