Research and Development

Our open innovation labs embrace several open innovation practices and a number of external partners and players, aimed at creating solutions alongside with prospects and users themselves.

07/10/2019 - 10:39 AM

TIM Open Labs are centres that result from the integration of TIM’s tech labs with TIM WCap offices and develop innovation for business and tech challenges, to produce a competitive advantage for the company in terms of both top-line growth and greater efficiency.

TIM Open Labs can be found in Turin, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Naples and Catania and employ Open Innovation methodology, bringing together the capacity of the industrial world, universities, research centres and innovative start-ups with in-house expertise. All of this contributes to TIM’s digital transformation, in the following directions:

enhancing the experience of business customers and consumers using innovative solutions
identifying and experimenting with new market opportunities
promoting TIM’s tech leadership with distinctive solutions for new network and service scenarios

The TIM Open Labs approach is “experimental”, based on checking the effective value of the solution offered with receptive customers so as to exploit successful initiatives fully. TIM Open Labs also develop synergies with national and European research and innovation projects and fine-tune new inventions that enhance TIM’s IPR assets, which now include more than 3000 patents.

Watch the interview on Mobile World Live with Andrea Calvi, our Head of Technology Evolution & Innovation. Filmed in our Wireless Lab, the cameras captured the main 5G applications of the various demo areas: from home automation to metering, from Internet of Things to Smart Cities. The most striking images are the ones coming from the “eco rooms”, set up in the Lab to verify without outside interference the efficiency of 5G antennas working in extremely high frequencies, from 3 GHz to 17 GHz.

Labs mission

pilots technological innovation,
new technology scouting,
surveys,
feasibility assessments and research into prototypes.

Areas of operation

fixed-line and mobile access network design and development,
transmission network upgrades,
service and platform development,
next-generation terminal design and testing.

Key facts and figures

more than 3,000 patents filed. Considering the ammount of patens filed in the mobile category, TIM is Telco number 2^ in Europe
over 9,000 m2 of laboratories based in Turin, Rome, Trento, Naples and Milan
on average there are over 80 researchers involved every year – either as teaching staff or other. The universities and research institutes partnered with TIMLab are based mainly in Europe but also in USA and Japan.