ROMA

FATME ( Fabbrica Apparecchiature Telefoniche e Materiale Elettrico ) was an Italian company that was founded in 1918 and remained until 1993. It was active in the field of electronics and telecommunications, bringing together all the corresponding activities that until then belonged to the Robert company. In September 1923, the new Mussolini government expressed its desire to invest in strengthening the national telephone network by outsourcing its management to private companies. At that time the ratio of telephone connections in Italy was one connection per approximately five hundred inhabitants. Swedish company Ericsson showed interest in FATME company. FATME’s first customers were Public Services, State Railways and the Army. In 1925 Italy was divided into 5 telephone zones, each awarded, by tender, to a contractor. SET company, which was owned by FATME, receives the Mezzogiorno region of southern Italy and Sicily, and within the next five years will build the southern Italian telephone network with 60,000 kilometers of cables. In 1931, Ericsson produced the first Bakelite telephone. FATME put into production this device as well as subsequent Ericsson models for Italy. In the same year, the company SIELTE (Società Impianti Elettrici e Telefonici sistema Ericsson) expanded its field of activity to the installation of telephone networks. FATME and SIELTE thus contributed significantly to the improvement of telephony in Italy. After World War II, the company became active again with long-distance telephone networks over coaxial cable. In 1970 FATME was the first to produce and install AKE-type electronic long -distance exchanges in the Italian network. In the 80’s the company starts the production and installation of the new digital centers to replace the old electromechanical ones. This leapfrog development is due to its collaboration with Ericsson. In the early 1990s, Ericsson completely absorbed the company, changing its name first to Ericsson FATME and then, after the merger with SIELTE in January 1994, to Ericsson Telecomunicazioni SpA. In Greece there was no cooperation with the Italian company since the Swedish company Ericsson was a partner of the Telecommunications Organization of Greece (O.T.E S.A). A small number of FATME phones have been commercially released. Also, those traveling to Italy brought individual Italian telephone sets.