Bell Laboratories

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U.S. research and development company (founded 1925) that develops telecommunications equipment and carries out defense-related research. Formerly part of AT&T, it now belongs to Lucent Technologies, Inc., which spun off from AT&T in 1996. Bell Labs has produced thousands of inventions, including the first synchronous-sound motion-picture system, the electrical-relay digital computer, the laser, the solar cell, UNIX, and the C and C++ programming languages. Several Bell researchers have won Nobel Prizes: Clinton Davisson, for demonstrating the wave nature of matter; John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley, for inventing the transistor; and Arno Penzias and Robert W. Wilson, for discovering cosmic microwave background radiation. It operates today in some 20 countries.

For more information on Bell Laboratories, visit Britannica.com.

Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs

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Contact Information

Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs
600 Mountain Ave.
Murray Hill, NJ 07974-0636
NJ Tel. 908-582-8500
Fax 908-508-2576

Type: Business Segment
On the web: http://www.bell-labs.com

Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs has a history of developing products that have shaped past and present technologies. Since its founding in 1925, the scientists at Bell Labs have been responsible for many groundbreaking technological achievements and have been awarded thousands of patents and several Nobel prizes for their efforts. Key "firsts" credited to Bell Labs include long-distance television transmission, fax transmission, touch-tone phone, communications satellite, and cellular telephone transmission. As the research and development arm of Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs' innovations include components of 3G mobile phone technology, telecommunications software, and nanotechnology for batteries, microphones, and lenses.

Officers:
President: Jeong H. Kim
VP Global Operations: Thierry Van Landegem
VP and Head, Alcatel-Lucent Ventures: John Riggs

Competitors:
Corning
IBM
SAIC