was established in 1956 as a manufacturer of electric wire and cable for power distribution. The company, based in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, was formed from Hitachi Densen Works, the Hitachi Works spin-off previously known as Densen Works of.

In the half-century following the creation of the company, has expanded its business operations to include the manufacture of rubber, copper and optical products. Although the company still actively engages in the development of raw materials for wires and cables, it has incorporated the development of telecommunications equipment into its product line. To that end, the product line now includes antennas and coaxial cable

Coaxial cable

Coaxial cable, or coax, has an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis...

s, compound semiconductors and various electronic components, including a terminal antenna for wireless communication. The company has also developed the WirelessIP5000, a wireless

Wireless

Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...

 IP phone

IP Phone

A VoIP phone uses voice over IP technologies allowing telephone calls to be made over an IP network such as the Internet instead of the ordinary PSTN system. Calls can traverse the Internet, or a private IP network such as that of a company...

 that supports the Session Initiation Protocol

Session Initiation Protocol

The Session Initiation Protocol is an IETF-defined signaling protocol widely used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol . The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party or multiparty sessions...

 (SIP).

As a related push into the IT

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

 arena, has developed the Apresia18020, Japan's first Terabit

Terabit

The terabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix tera is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 1012 , and therefore...

 network switch

Network switch

A network switch or switching hub is a computer networking device that connects network segments.The term commonly refers to a multi-port network bridge that processes and routes data at the data link layer of the OSI model...

, which has a switching capacity of 1.8 Terabits per second. The company is also one of more than a score of companies that support the consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

 known as the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance

10GEA

The 10GEA was an independent organization which aimed to further 10 Gigabit Ethernet development and market acceptance...

.