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Maritime History

The history of Zenitel dates back to 1901, when a group of Belgian entrepreneurs founded C.T.S.F. , Compagnie Générale de Télégraphie sans Fil.

Following World War II, the company (then named S.A.I.T. Electronics, Société Anonyme Internationale de Télégraphie), entered into various collaboration agreements with other companies including Radio Holland N.V. and Norsk Marconikompagnie A/S.

In 1992, the successful partnership with Radio Holland led to a takeover and SAIT Electronics began trading under the name SAIT-RadioHolland. 1997 brought a merger with another Norwegian company, Stentofon, likewise active in the internal communication systems sector.

Vingtor and Stentofon

Stentofon began life in 1946 as Stentor Radiofabrikk. Also in 1997, Stentofon AS merged with another Norwegian supplier of internal communication systems and provider of PMR-systems, RingCom AS, itself the result of a merger between Ring-Master and Noracom. Ring Marine AB with Ericsson Marine and Teleste Marine also joined the group. The Stentofon and RingCom amalgamation was called Stento ASA.

maritime historyIn 1988, after eight years of fruitful cooperation with Vingmed AS, Stento acquired the company VINGTOR Marine and became sole owner. Vingtor took over Steenhans in 1998, which also included the company Steenhans bought in 1995, Phonico.

Ring-Master and Noracom both had close business relations with Motorola, and Stento eventually became the main distributor for Motorola in all of the Nordic countries. Stento quickly expanded through a number of acquisitions, amongst which were the acquisition of Philips Intercom and Nursecall.

Change to Zenitel

In May 2000, a decision was taken on a merger between Stento ASA and the reorganized SAIT-RadioHolland. In 2001, Zenitel celebrated its one hundredth anniversary, changed its corporate identity and name to Zenitel.

Vingtor-Stentofon is a product brand owned by the Zenitel Group and is the result of merging the two product brands formerly known as Vingtor and Stentofon into one in 2014.