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THE HISTORY AND PRE-HISTORY OF BUDAVOX Pre-history by Roger Conklin Standard Villamossági Részvény Társaság was ITT's Hungarian subsidiary in Budapest, manufacturing for the local market and for export 7A-2 rotary switching equipment, PBXs, PABXs, telephones, etc. It was expropriated after the war, shortly after the communists took over. Robert Voegler, the American ITT executive in Budapest who was running the operation when it was taken over, was arrested. Voegler was charged and convicted of spying and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The US government retaliated with various actions, including closing Hungarian consulates in the US, and Voegler was released and deported after one year in prison. He wrote a book I was Stalin's prisoner published in 1952. There is an account of these events in Anthony Sampson's The Sovereign State of ITT, published in 1973. I have one 2724 subscriber telephone with a near-perfect "Standard Villamossági R. T." decal. This telephone is identical, except for the dial finger wheel, to the same model made by Bell Telephone Manufacturing in Antwerp, and other ITT factories in Europe and South America. The Hungarian finger wheel has a curved "window" above the center for the number card, rather than a round number card typical of 2724 sets made elsewhere. (There is a detailed description of the 2724 set in the July 1935 issue of ITT's journal Electrical Communication.) After expropriation, this company was renamed Budavox. Established by ITT in 1928, its manual switchboard product designs were inherited from the 1925 acquisition by ITT of International Western Electric. In the late 50s and early '60s Budavox supplied manual common battery switchboards, #3 toll boards, manual PBXs, PABXs and pay telephones to Entel, the government-owned telephone company in Argentina, much to the dismay of ITT's own Standard Electrica Argentina, which also made the same identical manual switchboards of Western Electric design. The jacks, plugs, relays and keys were identical to and interchangeable with the Argentine-made products. ITT's local factory could not compete with the Budavox prices. (Entel was formerly ITT's United Rio Plate Telephone Company until nationalized by the government of Juan Domingo Perón in 1946.) There is today a Budavox multi-position common battery switchboard and some of its pay phones on display in the telephone museum in Buenos Aires.
Subsequent historical note, summarised from Restructuring of the Telecommunications Sector in the West and the East and the Role of Science and Technology 1 Final Summary Paper (C.5.1), Berlin, Sept. 1998, by Jürgen Müller [Research funded in part by The European Commission] In the old COMECON days Hungary was a major supplier for telecommunications equipment. (with companies like Telefongyar, BHG, Budavox, Videoton among others). Up to 50% of the output was exported. Its equipment supplier had access to some Western know-how through limited licensing agreements. However, with the break down of the old trading order and the loss of markets in other neighboring countries, mainly Czech Republic, Russia and CIS states, and the increased competition for the market at home. The sector had to retract. Much depended now on the ambitious modernization and expansion plan in Hungary itself and the possibility to redirect exports to the world market. MATAV, the Hungarian telephone company, issued international tenders for modern switching equipment in 1990, which were won by Siemens and Ericsson, with an obligation to produce locally (an approach later abandoned by the new strategic investors). The telephone factory was then taken over in 1991 by Siemens Austria, with most of the efforts directed towards adapting and the "Hungarisation" of the Siemens products. Ericsson, which had operated in Hungary before the war, took over the computer company Müszertechnica RT, setting up a joint venture, Ericsson Technika, at first and later on made it a wholly owned subsidiary. Today both companies actually produce only some switching equipment and make the final tests and installation to assist inbound trade. But over the years hardware production has decreased, given the large economies of scale, so that much of the assembling is carried out abroad.
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