Alcatel - Alcatel-Lucent Timeline

Alcatel-Lucent Timeline

  • 1869 - Elisha Gray and Enos N. Barton formed Western Electric Company.
  • 1898 - French engineer Pierre Azaria sets up the Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE).
  • 1925 - CGE becomes part of Compagnie Générale des Câbles de Lyon. Bell Telephone Laboratories is created.
  • 1927 - Bell Labs makes the first American long distance television transmission between New York and Washington DC.
  • 1928 - Alsthom is formed by Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques and Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston.
  • 1937 - Dr. Clinton Davisson becomes the first of 11 Nobel Prize winners from Bell Labs for his experimental confirmation of the wave nature of electrons.
  • 1946 - Western Electric produces over 4 million telephones.
  • 1947 - Bell Labs invents the transistor. Bell Labs' Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young wrote a memo entitled a Mobile Telephoney - Wide Area Coverage using "hexagonal" cells for radio frequency.
  • 1948 - Claude Shannon, of Bell Labs, publishes a paper on Information Theory.
  • 1954 - Bell Labs invents the solar cell battery.
  • 1956 - AT&T is involved in the efforts of TAT-1, the first submarine trans-Atlantic telephone cable, handling up to 36 channels. Electric repeaters, created by Bell Labs, were used. To settle anti-trust lawsuit, Western Electric (formerly AT&T) sells off non-networking equipment business.
  • 1957 - Laser is invented at Bell Labs.
  • 1962 - Bell Labs builds and launches Telstar1, the first orbiting active communications satellite.
  • 1969 - Unix operating system is invented by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson.
  • 1970 - Ambroise Roux becomes CGE's chairman. He then becomes the honorary chairman until his death in 1999.
  • 1978 - Bell Labs trails the first trial of a commercial cell phone service in Chicago.
  • 1980 - Bell Labs announces digital signal processor.
  • 1982 - Jean-Pierre Brunet becomes CGE's chairman.
  • 1983 - AT&T installs the first high-capacity, long-haul lightwave transmission system between NYC and Washington DC.
  • 1984 - Georges Pebereau becomes CGE's chairman. Thompson telecommunications is absorbed by CGE. Cables de Lyon buys Thompson Jeumont Cables and Kabelmetal.
  • 1985 - Alsthom Atlantique becomes Alsthom. Alcatel is formed when CIT-Alcatel and Thompson telecommunications merge.
  • 1986 - ITT Corporation sells its European telecommunications business to CGE under its agreement with Alcatel NV. Cables de Lyon becomes a subsidiary of Alcatel NV. Pierre Suard becomes CGE Chairman.
  • 1987 - CGE is privatized. Alsthom wins contract for TGV Atlantique for the Northern TGV network.
  • 1989 - CGE and General Electric Company form GEC Alsthom. This allows Alsthom to sells its products outside France. CGEE-Alsthom becomes Cegelec. AT&T Technologies reorganizes with the following business units: Network systems, Global Business Communications, Microelectronics and Consumer Products.
  • 1991 - CGE changes its name to Alcatel Alsthom. Acquires Rockwell Technologies transmission equipment division. Cables de Lyons is renamed Alcatel Cable and takes over AEG Kabel.
  • 1992 - Alcatel Alsthom acquires AEG Kabel.
  • 1993 - Alcatel Alsthom acquires STC Submarine systems from now Nortel Networks.
  • 1995 - Serge Tchuruk appointed chairman and CEO of Alcatel Alsthom. He restructured the company to focus on telecommunications equipment.
  • 1996 - Lucent Technologies launches IPO, the largest at that time.
  • 1998 - Alcatel Alsthom split. Alsthom GEC becomes Alstom through an IPO (with Alcatel retaining 24%). Alcatel sells Cegelec to the newly formed Alstom. Alcatel acquires DSC and Packet Engines
  • 1998 - Lucent purchases Jeong Kim's Yurie Systems for $1.1 billion.
  • 1999 - Alcatel acquires Xylan, Assured Access and Internet Devices. Alcatel increases its stake in Thomson CSF to 25.3% and decreases its stake in Framatome to 8.6%.
  • 2000 - Alcatel acquires Newbridge, Genesys and Innovative Fibers. Alcatel spins off its cable unit into Nexans. Lucent spins off Avaya Inc.
  • 2001 - Alcatel sells its stake in Alstom. Alcatel buys back Alcatel Space investment from Thales, and reduces its stake in Thales to 20.03%. Alcatel sells its 2.2% stake in Areva. Alcatel sells DSL modem business to Thomson Multimedia. Lucent spins off its microelectronics business into Agere Systems via an IPO.
  • 2002 - Alcatel acquires Astral Point Communications Inc., Telera Corporation, and control of Alcatel Shanghai Bell. Alcatel sells its microelectronic business to STMicroelectronics, its stake in Thomson, 10.3M shares of Thales, and 1.5M shares of Nexans. Pat Russo becomes Lucent's CEO.
  • 2003 - Patricia Russo becomes Lucent's Chairman. Alcatel acquires iMagicTV, and TiMetra Inc. It sells a 50% stake in Atlinks, and its optical business to Avanex.
  • 2004 - Alcatel acquires eDial Inc. Alcatel and TLC form a joint venture: Alcatel Mobile Phones, with Alcatel holding a 45% stake. Alcatel and Draka Holdings form a joint venture: Draka Comteq B.V. with Alcatel holding a 49.9 stake. Alcatel finalizes its acquisition of Spatial Wireless but sells 7.1M shares of Avanex. Lucent reports its first profitable year and revenue increase since 2000.
  • 2005 - Jeong Kim becomes Bell Labs 11th president.
  • 2006 - Alcatel sell its satellite, railway signaling and critical security domain to Thales. On November 30 Alcatel and Lucent merge. Alcatel-Lucent is formed. Alcatel Lucent acquires Nortel's UMTS radio access business.
  • 2007 - Alcatel-Lucent acquires Tropic Networks, NetDevices, Thompson Advisory Group, and Tamblin.
  • 2008 - Alcatel-Lucent acquires Motive Inc. Ben Verwaayen becomes Alcatel-Lucent second CEO.
  • 2009 - Alcatel-Lucent sells remaining share of Thales.
  • 2011 - Wim Sweldens leads a wireless group to develop lightRadio, a technology to reduce the size of cell towers to tiny cubes.

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