Lucent Technologies

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Lucent Technologies Inc.

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1996
resolution December 1, 2006
Seat Murray Hill (New Jersey) ( USA )
management Patricia Russo
Number of employees almost 30,000
sales 8.8 billion US dollars
Branch Communication technology

Lucent Technologies Network Systems GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding 1997
resolution June 20, 2006
Seat Nuremberg , Bonn , Neu-Isenburg
management Rainer Fechner, Eberhard Popp, Hans-Burghardt Ziermann
Number of employees 1,300

Until its merger with Alcatel to form Alcatel-Lucent SA in summer 2006, Lucent Technologies (name of the operating company in Germany: Lucent Technologies Network Systems GmbH ) was a telecommunications company based in Murray Hill (New Jersey) , USA . Lucent Technologies developed and sold systems, software and services for communication networks with a focus on the convergence of networks, services and communication media. The customer base included service providers, global companies and authorities. The group as a whole achieved sales of US $ 9.05 billion in fiscal 2004 and employed around 31,000 people worldwide. (All information in this article is as of September 2005, unless otherwise stated.)

Business areas of the company

Lucent Technologies is divided into two business areas: the product and solutions division Network Solutions Group and the service division Lucent Worldwide Services . Lucent Technologies also owns the Bell Labs research and development center .

Network Solutions Group

The Network Solutions Group comprises products and solutions for fixed networks, cellular networks and convergent networks . Solutions for convergent networks are in particular:

  • Services and Applications:
    • VoIP solutions
    • Convergent, personalized applications
    • Triple play solutions
    • Messaging
    • Solutions for fast mobile data services
    • Mobile Internet MyLife platform
    • Communication security
  • Transmission technology including network control:
    • Systems for circuit and packet-switched voice networks
    • Systems for data networks
    • Optical network technology
    • Access technology, wired and radio-supported
    • 3G solutions
    • Network management software

Lucent Worldwide Services

Lucent Worldwide Services (LWS) provides services, in particular

  • Professional Services (e.g. Consulting),
  • Deployment,
  • Maintenance,
  • Managed services (e.g. remote network maintenance).

The LWS division includes around 10,000 technicians, engineers, consultants and program managers in 45 countries on 6 continents.

Bell Labs

overview

The Bell Laboratories (Bell Labs) are the world's largest private research institute for communications technology.

You develop products and solutions for communication networks and at the same time research the basics of communication technologies. Bell Labs have developed around 40,000 inventions and 31,000 patents.

Her researchers have received six Nobel Prizes in Physics , nine US National Medals of Science and eight US National Medals of Technology .

Lucent Technologies invests around twelve percent of its sales annually in the activities of Bell Labs.

Known developments

The most famous developments from Bell Labs include:

Bell Labs in Nuremberg

The Bell Labs at the Nuremberg location bear the title “Optical Center of Excellence” and are the largest research and development location of Lucent Technologies outside the USA. The entire optical product area and the SDH area are researched and developed in Nuremberg . One focus area is high-speed transmission, ASICs and optical amplifiers as well as the so-called LambdaUnite MultiService Switch , an optical network node that integrates the functionality of a cross-connect and a multiplexer .

Another focus is UMTS development; In Nuremberg, interface specifications and UMTS and HSDPA software for base stations and PC data cards are developed, system and interoperability tests are carried out and are involved in setting up commercial networks.

A third focus is the integration of cellular and landline technologies into an IP-based network with which convergent services can be implemented.

Cooperation with other research institutions

Lucent Technologies has been operating the Terabit Laboratory in Nuremberg together with the Heinrich Hertz Institute since April 2001 .

Company history

Friedrich Heller (1858–1904)

The history of telecommunications in Nuremberg begins with Friedrich Heller. In 1858 he opened a mechanical workshop and mainly manufactured electrical doorbell systems and telegraphs . In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for a telephone set in the USA . Heller procured two sets and in 1877 introduced Bell telephones with their own improvements. He applied to the Royal Bavarian General Management of the Bavarian Transport Authority and received his first assignment from the post office. 1884 followed the approval as a supplier to the railway company ; Post and rail were its main customers. Heller's company initially flourished, but ran into economic difficulties in 1903 and was liquidated in 1904.

Felten & Guilleaume (1906–1911)

In 1906 the company Felten & Guilleaume took over the company Heller , which was in liquidation , and later the company Obermaier, also based in Nuremberg . With these takeovers, Felten & Guilleaume had a branch in Nuremberg with a production program that allows customers to be supplied with cables and telephones. Contacts with the post office were expanded. Business volume and income improved year on year.

TeKaDe (1912–1949)

In 1912 Felten & Guilleaume converted its Nuremberg branch into an independent stock corporation, the Süddeutsche Telefon-Apparate-, Kabel- und Drahtwerke AG with the telegram word TeKaDe . In 1921 the development of line amplifiers and the construction of intermediate amplifier offices began. The introduction of public broadcasting in 1923 created new areas of demand and production. First, TeKaDe manufactured detector receivers and headphones in large numbers, then radio tubes and radio sets. After the introduction of the sound film , the company was the first to develop a practical amplifier for sound film theaters in 1928. Half of all German movie theaters were soon equipped with TeKaDe amplifiers, TeKaDe produces 100,000 radio and amplifier tubes per month.

Demand rose sharply from 1934 onwards. TeKaDe also produced radios for the mass market, including the Volksempfänger . In the German Reich , the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft began broadcasting German television on the "Paul Nipkow" station at the Berlin radio tower in March 1935 . TeKaDe developed and manufactured mirror screw televisions between 1928 and 1936 , and televisions with cathode ray tubes from 1936 . Together with Telefunken and others, TeKaDe develops the “Volksfernseher” ( standard television receiver E 1 ). It was supposed to be on the market at Christmas 1939, but the war prevented mass production. The establishment of an air raid warning service and wireline radio , a forerunner of today's cable connections, required large quantities of cables and amplifiers. Above all, the Reichspost needed cable amplifiers in the newly developed standardized modular design.

TeKaDe and Felten & Guilleaume Fernmeldeanlagen GmbH (1950–1982)

B72 radio telephone system from TeKaDe for the A network , 1963

The carrier frequency technology brought extensive innovations for telephone traffic over long distances. It enabled the transmission of initially 60 and eventually more than 960 calls in parallel over one line. In order to develop and use this technology, Felten & Guilleaume and Philips founded the joint company Felten & Guilleaume Fernmeldeanlagen GmbH (FGF) in 1949, based in Nuremberg, from 1953 at the current location at Thurn-und-Taxis-Straße 10. TeKaDe is still in active in the areas of switching technology, amplifiers, billing meters and cable manufacturing. In 1959 production began in the cable factory in Nuremberg-Langwasser.

From 1961, TeKaDe supplied the equipment for the public mobile land radio service, the first mobile network in Germany, also known as the A network . The vehicle system B72 achieved widespread use as a car telephone , in long-distance trains as train mail and on inland waterway vessels . In addition, TeKaDe also developed the network technology for the A network.

In 1970, TeKaDe began marketing telephones and private branch exchanges directly in the private market and brought out a series of six telephone sets with a new design. In 1971, the first devices for direct dialing from TeKaDe production were available to private customers. At the beginning of 1977 experiments with a video telephone system began in Nuremberg . The transmission of messages through optical fibers (glass fiber) reached application maturity in 1981. TeKaDe is installing a first long-distance cable route with 34 Mbit / s transmission capacity between Nuremberg and Schwabach .

Philips Communication Industry AG (1982–1995)

In 1982 four production sites, including a. TeKaDe-FGF formed with the Nürnberg-Langwasser cable works, the Philips Communication Industry AG (PKI) . Digital switching and transmission technology begins to replace analog systems. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the equipment of the former GDR with the latest transmission technology revived business. The PKI company experienced its heyday in 1992. The high growth figures were no longer achieved; several waves of layoffs follow. In the spring of 1995, the first sales talks were held with the US company AT&T .

AT&T and Lucent Technologies (1996-2000)

In early 1996, AT&T took over several PKI business units. The development of GSM base stations and controllers as well as system integration and testing of GSM cellular networks were now located in Nuremberg . The technologies GPRS and EDGE for increasing data rates and new methods for increasing capacity were developed in Nuremberg. Technologies have been developed in optical transmission technology that primarily increase the transmission capacity by four (10 Gbit / s) and sixteen times (40 Gbit / s) compared to the recently introduced (STM-16) SDH systems.

In the course of the deregulation of the US telecommunications market, AT&T spun off its network technology division in 1996. As a newly founded company, it went public under the name Lucent Technologies Inc. Bell Labs, AT & T's research and development centers for communications technology, have also been part of Lucent Technologies since the spin-off.

The production facility in Allersberger Strasse was replaced in 1997 by the Global Provisioning Center (GPC) in the former Grundig factory 21 on Beuthener Strasse in Langwasser. 700 employees produced GSM and SDH systems. A new company building is being built at the Thurn-und-Taxis-Straße location.

Lucent Technologies (2001-2006)

The crisis of the new economy also gripped Lucent Technologies. Changes in the organization, outsourcing of parts of the company and downsizing reduced the workforce in the years 2001 to 2003 from 126,000 to less than 35,000 employees worldwide. The GPC in Nuremberg was closed; Lucent Technologies transferred the production to external companies. Departments were split off as independent companies, for example Avaya or Agere .

The Lucent Technologies' Optical Fiber Solutions division, where u. a. fiber optic cables manufactured in Augsburg was sold to Furukawa Electric (with a minority interest from CommScope) in 2001 . The new company became independent under the name OFS BrightWave . Its headquarters are in Norcross on the outskirts of Atlanta . Sales for Germany will remain in Bonn. In 2004, Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd. , Through its subsidiary Furukawa Electric North America, Inc. sole owner of OFS Bright Wave .

After the development departments in Huizen / Hilversum (Netherlands) were closed, the Nuremberg location became the largest development location outside the USA.

In Nuremberg, the transition from GSM to UMTS system technology was accompanied. Network technology and end devices, such as the UMTS data card for notebooks , were originally developed in Nuremberg; the development of high bit rate optical transmission systems continued. In 2003 the GSM development was transferred to Hughes Software Systems (later Flextronics Software Systems , now Aricent ).

Merger with Alcatel (2006)

On April 2, 2006 was Lucent Technologies announced within twelve months with its French competitor Alcatel to merge . Together, the two companies expected annual sales of EUR 21 billion and savings through synergy effects of EUR 1.4 billion within three years. Former CEO of Lucent Technologies, Patricia Russo , became CEO , while former Alcatel CEO Serge Tchuruk became non-executive chairman with extended powers. The new name is Alcatel-Lucent . In Germany, the merger was completed with effect from June 20, 2006 through the merger of Lucent Technologies Network Systems GmbH with Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG . Lucent Technologies Network Systems GmbH's operations in Nuremberg, Bonn and Neu-Isenburg were continued. The production of devices is now mainly done in the Far East.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Alcatel and Lucent Technologies to Merge and Form World's Leading Communication Solutions Provider . Alcatel-Lucent. Archived from the original on December 25, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 28, 2010.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alcatel-lucent.com
  2. a b Dance of the Dinosaurs . The mirror . Retrieved March 28, 2010.
  3. Alcatel and Lucent complete merger creating world's leading communication solutions provider . Alcatel-Lucent. Retrieved on March 28, 2010.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.alcatel-lucent.com  
  4. a b Lucent takeover by Alcatel perfect . Publisher Heinz Heise . Retrieved March 28, 2010.
  5. http://www.radiomuseum.org/dsp_steller_detail.cfm?company_id=30