Skip to main content

Signify buys Telensa

Signify has bought the UK-based smart street lighting business Telensa from Plextek Group for an undisclosed sum.
April 11, 2022 Read time: 2 mins
Last summer, Telensa won a contract from Essex Highways in England to replace and upgrade smart street lighting controls on 82,000 residential streetlights in Essex county (image courtesy Telensa)

Formed in 1989, Plextek is a technology design house specialising in communications technology products and systems.

Telensa pioneered the system that meters, manages and controls streetlights, a process now labelled smart street lighting. It uses the Ultra Narrow Band (UNB) wireless protocol to achieve outstanding coverage owing to its long radio range and correspondingly low requirements for cells and associated base station hardware.

The Telensa system is typically procured by local councils and utility organisations attracted by its green credentials, creating a return on investment in just three years, based on savings from lower electricity consumption and reduced maintenance costs. Telensa has more than two million connected streetlights in 400 cities globally, based on nearly 100 networks.

Signify, formerly known as Philips Lighting, is a Dutch multinational lighting business formed in 2016 through a spin-off of the lighting division of Philips. The company manufactures electric lights and light fixtures for consumers, roads, professionals and the IoT (Internet of Things). In 2018, Philips Lighting changed its name to Signify but the company still produces lights under the Philips brand.

In a statement, Signify said that with Telensa, Signify adds a narrow-band and TALQ-compliant solution to its feature-rich, open and secured systems. This enables Signify to service a broader group of customers by making smart city infrastructure affordable to cities using the unlicensed radio space. Telensa will continue to sell its systems under its own brand name. Recent Telensa projects include those in the US, Brazil, Hong Kong, UAE, Australia and New Zealand.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Information technology and transport development
    April 12, 2012
    A team of eminent Russian specialists* introduce exciting new information technologies, such as the Internet of Things, and foresee their promising applications in the field of transport infrastructure development. Global economic growth, combined with explosive digital technology proliferation, brings new challenges to the field of transport infrastructure. Technical advances such as Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), vehicle to infrastructure interfaces, global positioning, electronic toll collecti
  • Information technology and transport development
    February 16, 2012
    A team of eminent Russian specialists* introduce exciting new information technologies, such as the Internet of Things, and foresee their promising applications in the field of transport infrastructure development
  • Sophisticated Internet control over street lighting
    August 11, 2014
    TTP and Mayflower have completed development of their latest wireless smart lighting control system. This latest design is said to offer a 50% reduction in power consumption compared to existing smart lighting systems along with better reliability, improved radio range and good metering accuracy. The new MK3 design is now available, with the Zigbee based solution already qualified for sale in North America and beyond this product range dramatically increases Mayflower’s offering.
  • Decarbonising roads in the UK
    January 26, 2023
    A new grant scheme will help with decarbonising roads in the UK.