Partners
Telefonica I+D, S.A.
Telefonica I+D is a company totally owned by Telefonica S.A and operational since 1988. Telefonica S.A has created Telefonica I+D to fulfill its Research and Development requirements with more excellence and profitability and to contribute to Telefonica Group competitiveness through technological innovation. Over the last years, the line of work of Telefonica I+D has evolved to conform to the objective of becoming a services creation lab.
This objective is driven by the emergence of interactive multimedia services which are increasingly becoming a mayor force in the telecommunications market. Telefonica I+D employs over 1200 persons, 93% of them hold a University degree. Telefonica I+D has facilities in Madrid, Barcelona and Valladolid and anew subsidiary company has been created recently in Sao Paulo: Telefonica Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento do Brasil.
All the activities in Telefonica I+D are carried out conforming to an in house methodology, supported with tools, which has been awarded an ISO 9001 Certification since 1994, ISO 14001 Certification since 1998 and a large amount of prices to innovation and excellence. Nowadays Telefonica I+D is the most important private company in Spain devoted to R&D and very active in the following major areas:
- Services creation, related to the broadband, ADSL, intelligent network, data communications, narrowband ISDN, mobile communications, speech technology, multimedia services, and public use telecommunications.
- Network and services management, both fixed and mobile, using solutions based on the latest standards.
- Network innovation, with the purpose of supporting Telefonica in its effort to offer the widest possible range of services.
Telefonica I+D bases its work on the use of the most advanced and competitive concepts and media. This requires thorough knowledge of the suitable technical capabilities over a range of basic technologies. The company has in depth expertise in formal methods, object oriented design and programming systems, software engineering tools, real time systems, data bases and knowledge bases, A.I. tool kits, knowledge representation and reasoning, man machine interface, and software tools for network simulation. The company has a computer center, a micro software development tools group, and special laboratories, such as an optical transmission, Human Factors, or a video services laboratory.
Also, Telefonica I+D has developed a Innovation Plan, with the objective of anticipating solutions to the challenges that the future information society will raise.
Telefonica I+D has participated in numerous European projects: RACE I, RACE II, ESPRIT II, ESPRIT III, TEN-IBS, TEN-ISDN, CTS, COST, BRITE, ACTS, IST , IV FP, V FP, Ten-Telecom and e-Content.
Telefónica Móviles España
In 2005, the Spanish mobile telephone sector experienced an increase in competition with over 43 million lines and a penetration rate of 97%. Against this backdrop, Telefónica Móviles España, recorded net adds of nearly 260,000 customers in the fourth quarter of the year and nearly one million lines d uring the year (48% more than in 2004). The company now has close to 20 million customers, 4.8% more than in 2004. In the fourth quarter of 2005, 1.1 million customers upgraded their phones, with a total of nearly 4.5 million upgrades in 2005 (23.2% more than in 2004).
Telefónica Móviles España continued the roll-out of its UMTS network and invested in increasing the capacity of its networks responding to the rise inconsumption during the year. At the end of 2005, Telefónica Móviles España's UMTS network had over 5,000 base stations, providing coverage to areas where more than 70% of the population lives. The company's shares trade on the Spanish stock exchanges and the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TEM.
Bantry Technologies
Bantry Technologies is a private limited company founded in 1999 and located in Dublin. It is specialised in the development of embedded telecom software modules and related development and test tools. This is an emerging market segment of the smart card industry in which, according to independent analysts, software houses are set to play a key role. With over 30 years of cumulated experience in the smart card industry, the company decided to base its products line on innovation and challenges in order to meet the market expectations; interoperability, flexibility, time-to-market, reactivity and customers satisfaction. Target customers are both the mobile telecom operators and smart card manufacturers for which the software modules can be customised and licensed according to their own constraints and requirements. In addition to the above, the company also provides consulting and training services which fully complement the product offering.
Simulity
Simulity, founded in 2005, is a young consulting company developing secure, performant and portable mobile solution including embedded devices and smart cards. Simulity is especially committed to promoting innovative mobile architectures such as enhanced mobile security with hardware components.
VITEC Multimedia
VITEC Multimedia is a leader in digital video technology and is developing and manufacturing original multimedia products at the point where micro-computing and video technology meet.
VITEC is very well experienced in MPEG-digital video technology. The whole VITEC's business has been MPEG and only MPEG for more than 15 years. VITEC has a full range of MPEG products (see http://www.VITECmm.com). VITEC's innovative and competitive products are sold worldwide through computer distributors, multimedia VAR's, system integrators and OEM's.
VITEC has built an existing distribution network and direct sales in 24 countries and is exporting over 80% of its turnover. In 1997, VITEC established a commercial subsidiary in the US. VITEC develops algorithms for image coding, electronic boards for PC's or for embedded systems, ASIC's for low cost products and application software under Windows. VITEC received the IST 2001 Prize for its most recent MPEG-2 compression hybrid technology (VM2000 Asic).
Moreover, VITEC already has experience of the management of European research projects (Viper and NetCam). VITEC was also involved a s a contractor in the TRANSIT and CAR projects (RACE), in ISIS (ACTS), and finally in INK, HIPER-KIDS and D-ARTS projects (ESPRIT). VITEC has also participated to ITEA programme with the AMBIENCE and MAGELLAN projects. VITEC is interested in improving the quality of compression algorithms that are used for encoding video streams. VITEC is also willing to enrich video streams with complementary information dealing with video content, especially concerning audio-visual object extraction and description that can be compliant with MPEG-4/-7/-21 standards.
Ektacom, S.A.R.L.
Since 1999, EKTAcom works as a "constructor" in domains like parallel antenna, video contents saving, or video programs IP broadcasting. After years of success in such activities, the company has improved its services integration activity since 2005.
Its Global Services department deals with consulting and services integration activities, in Broadcast, Defense, Governmental or Corporate branch. Its Technologies department deals about media contents, with "media monitoring" oriented products : digitalization, conversion and broadcast of video contents, including seeking and editing software functionalities.
Fundació Privada i2CAT, Internet i Innovació Digital a Catalunya
The i2CAT Foundation, Internet and Digital Innovation in Catalonia, is a non-profit organization located in Barcelona (Spain), whose mission is to promote research and innovation in advanced Internet technology at a regional, national and international level.
The i2CAT model is based on the collaboration between the public and private sectors and the academic environment, setting up an innovative Triple Helix model (Leydesdorff) in the ICTs.
As far as the international dimension is concerned, i2CAT participates in European programmes through research networks such as GéANT2 and technological platforms such as NEM (Networked and Electronic Media). The current European projects are HDVIPER (CELTIC-EUREKA, Call 4), DRMSolution NG (CELTIC-EUREKA, Call 4), PHOSPHORUS (FP6), FEDERICA (FP7).
The i2CAT Foundation is organized into five sector clusters: Network Technologies cluster, Audiovisual cluster, eHealth cluster, Education cluster, Industry cluster. The aim of these clusters is to carry out innovation projects and to deploy, evaluate and approve technologies, applications and innovative IP services. Each cluster heads its own projects, using a common infrastructure of development called Technological Platform, consisting of the following two macro-areas: NetCAT (the core of i2CAT network, constructed with an high speed network infrastructure) and MediaCAT (a multimedia laboratory with advanced audiovisual equipments).
Sagem Orga
Sagem Orga is a pioneer and a global leader in the smart card industry. The company develops and implements cutting-edge technology to turn the vision of unbounded mobile communications and integrated digital security into a reality. Sagem Orga´s portfolio includes hardware, software, consulting and services, all focused on smart cards for the benefit of consumers and providers in the telecommunications, health, identification and banking areas.
In the telecommunications sector, Sagem Orga´s customers include the world´s largest wireless carriers. Millions of people benefit from its custom-made solutions for GSM, CDMA and UMTS. With its security technology designed for the health, identification and banking industries, Sagem Orga protects people and their identities around the world and secures electronic communications between government agencies and the citizens and companies they serve. It offers solutions for biometric and electronic identification, electronic ID cards, health cards, driversé licenses and cashless payment.
Sagem Orga has a worldwide network of subsidiaries, branches and sales partners as well as production facilities incorporating the latest technology in Germany, Brazil, Russia and India. The company has a workforce of over 2,100 people. As a subsidiary of Sagem Sécurité it is part of the international high-tech group SAFRAN, which generates annual sales of more than 12 billion euros with 57,000 employees in over 30 countries.
