Before most people in the telecom industry ever uttered the word “convergence,” Telular Corp. was living it.
The Vernon Hills firm began life supplying wireless burglar alarm systems that work even when bad guys cut the phone lines, and it quickly developed a product that enables landline phones to operate using wireless networks.
Telular continues selling wireless burglar alarms and has built a business supplying its wireless phones. When you pick up a Telular-enabled phone, for instance, you hear a dial tone, and when you dial a number, the call goes through without the necessity of pushing “send.”
The product serves lots of niche applications.
People with yachts, for instance, like having regular phones and fax machines on their boats that work wirelessly as the boat zips through the water. Emergency personnel use Telular phones in mobile communications operations.
Telular products work as phone banks that the media can use for covering events such as golf tournaments. The company has also done well selling products in developing countries that lack wired infrastructure.
But for all its successes, the firm still finds profitability elusive. In its last quarter, Telular lost more than $900,000. To succeed, the firm believes it must tap into North America’s mainstream consumer market.
Late last year, Telular launched a test in five markets in conjunction with Sprint Corp., selling products that enable customers to cut their connection to wired service and run the phones, faxes and dial-in computers in their homes off a Sprint wireless connection.
“The economics can be very attractive,” said Jeffrey Krevitt, Telular’s senior marketing vice president. “A customer who already has a Sprint wireless account can usually add another account for $19.95 a month.”
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Telular and Sprint continue to experiment with the best way to market the product to customers, said John Berndt, Telular’s chief executive and chairman.
“We expect to continue the market test into the summer,” he said.
Telular is also talking to other carriers in its market expansion effort.
Berndt became CEO in February after Kenneth Millard stepped down. The company is searching for a replacement and hopes to have a new chief in place by autumn, Berndt said.
Lighten up: Some day office workers may be able to brighten and dim the lighting around their cubicle through a remote control unit or on their personal computer.
Philips Lighting Electronics, a Rosemont-based firm that makes ballasts used to control fluorescent lights, is introducing a new line of ballasts equipped with small radio chips.
The chips, which conform to an industry standard called ZigBee, not only enable wireless control of lighting, but also gather information about electricity use that can aid in load-leveling strategies.
“We believe there are a lot of complicated things this technology can do,” said Brian Dundon, Philips Lighting’s chief executive. “But we want to make it simple and straightforward.”
Wireless control of lighting is comparable in cost to installing a wired control system, Dundon said, but installation is much easier and less disruptive to an office.
The company envisions these smart ballasts as the first in what will be a multitude of ZigBee-equipped devices that will turn office buildings into intelligent workplaces.
“We see the day where if a fire breaks out somewhere in the building, the infrastructure will know about it at once to alert workers,” said Andrew Wale, business development vice president at Philips Lighting.
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