Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc., originally Lucent Technologies, Inc. is a French-owned technology company composed of what was formerly AT&T Technologies

AT&T Technologies

AT&T Technologies, Inc., was created in 1983 in preparation for the Bell System Divestiture, which became effective as of January 1, 1984. It assumed the corporate charter of Western Electric Co., Inc.-Creation:...

, which included Western Electric

Western Electric

Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...

 and Bell Labs

Bell Labs

Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

. It was spun off from AT&T on September 30, 1996.

Lucent was purchased by Alcatel SA

Alcatel

Alcatel Mobile Phones is a brand of mobile handsets. It was established in 2004 as a joint venture between Alcatel-Lucent of France and TCL Communication of China....

 of France to form Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent is a global telecommunications corporation, headquartered in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France. It provides telecommunications solutions to service providers, enterprises, and governments around the world, enabling these customers to deliver voice, data, and video services...

 on December 1, 2006.
One of the primary reasons AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

 chose to spin off its equipment manufacturing business was to permit it to profit from sales to competing telecommunication

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

s providers; these customers had previously shown reluctance to purchase from a direct competitor.