Inventel was a French company developing consumer electronics and communication systems, noted for domestic gateways and considered one of the primary architects of

Triple play In baseball, a triple play (denoted as TP in baseball statistics) is the act of making three outs during the same play. There have only been 733 triple plays in Major League Baseball (MLB) since 1876, an average of just over five per season. Th ...

in Europe. Founded in 1990 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

by Jacques Lewiner and Eric Carreel, the company was acquired by

Thomson SA Thomson may refer to: Names * Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin * Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson Businesses and organizations * SGS-Thomson M ...

in 2005.

History

Inventel was founded in 1990 by two researchers from

ESPCI ParisTech ESPCI Paris (officially the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la Ville de Paris; ''The City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution'') is a prestigious grande école founded in 1882 by ...

, Jacques Lewiner and Eric Carreel, who later co-founded

Withings Withings (pronounced "WITH-things") is a French consumer electronics company headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. It also has offices in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and Hong Kong, and distributes its products worldwide. Withings is kno ...

. The company was successful at commercializing scientific research, and providing full product development (software, electronics, and mechanical) in-house. In the 90’s Inventel succeeded in the

pagers A pager (also known as a beeper or bleeper) is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknow ...

market with Tam Tam: a paging service using the

ERMES ERMES (European Radio Messaging System or Enhanced Radio Messaging System) was a pan-European radio paging system. Technical specification In 1990, the European Telecommunications Standard Institute ( ETSI) developed the European Telecommunication ...

standard, which was marketed by large

operators Operator may refer to: Mathematics * A symbol indicating a mathematical operation * Logical operator or logical connective in mathematical logic * Operator (mathematics), mapping that acts on elements of a space to produce elements of another sp ...

. In 1997, Inventel began its engineering activities in

DECT Digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (Digital European cordless telecommunications), usually known by the acronym DECT, is a standard primarily used for creating cordless telephone systems. It originated in Europe, where it is the common ...

. Since then, many Inventel features for DECT phones have been distributed by the major European operators. By 1999, Inventel was working on a device integrating wired and wireless voice and data. The BlueDSL was released in 2001. In 2001, Inventel accepted a €6 million investment from Banexi Ventures and Innovacom. Inventel became the first major manufacturer of

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

wireless secured access, with the DWB200 released in 2002. Further ADSL modems for wireless hotspots and the consumer electronics market were developed, including the Livebox gateway which was distributed by

France Telecom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...

and several other European operators. In March 2005, Thomson announced the acquisition of Inventel.http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/sitesearch.do?querystring=inventel§ionId=342&p=tto&pf=all Based in the 5th arrondissement of Paris near the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris, the company had around 75 employees when it was acquired by Thomson.

References

{{Reflist Electronics companies of France