Lucent Technologies was a technology company composed of what was formerly AT&T Technologies, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs. It was spun off from AT&T on September 30, 1996. Lucent merged with Alcatel SA of France to form Alcatel-Lucent on December 1, 2006. (External Link) History One of the primary reasons AT&T chose to spin off its equipment manufacturing business was to permit it to profit from sales to competing telecommunications providers; these customers had previously sh… (More on Lucent)