At next month’s Cebit exhibition in Hanover, Germany, Telegate is due to unveil Multigate DECT, the first system in the world that supplies wireless connection for telephone calls and Internet surfing on cable network.
Wireless telephones using DECT digital standard are widely distributed in Europe and supply high quality wireless connectivity solutions for a number of users, in home or small office environment. According to research company Frost & Sullivan, Europe has some twelve million operative DECT telephones in the domestic sector, and another one million in the business sector.
Frost & Sullivan predicts that, by year 2001, half of Western European businesses will be equipped with DECT systems.
Multigate is the name of Telegate’s cable telephony modem. It is a home/office unit installed for the consumer by the cable television company. The unit enables the subscriber to view cable broadcasts, while at the same time talking on a cable infrastructure line telephone, sending computer data or surfing the Internet.
According to Telegate’s current announcement, Multigate possesses short-range wireless communications capability. Company general manager Ehud Iloni said he believes that Multigate DECT will confer on cable operators using the system a unique advantage over their competitors, giving them a better chance of penetrating the domestic sector and the growing small offices market.
Telegate, founded in 1993, maintains close marketing co-operation with ECI Telecom, which is also one of the company’s major investors, and with another investor, namely General Instruments Corp, which supplies infrastructure systems for cable TV providers.
At the beginning of 1995, Telegate won a contract that could potentially exceed $100 million, for supplying Multigate systems to Belgium’s Telenet cable network. The latter is one of the investments of major US telephony company US West. Since signing the contract, Telegate has supplied thousands of Multigate units to the network’s subscribers.
Published by Israel's Business Arena February 16, 1999