Alcatel

Alcatel SA was a French industrial conglomerate active between 1963 and 2006. It has roots to Compagnie Générale d’Electricité (CGE), a conglomerate founded in 1898 as an early state owned cable and telephone equipment company that later expanded into construction, shipbuilding and energy. In telecommunications, Alcatel it was a major supplier of digital telephone switches, terrestrial and submarine transmission cables, satellite equipment, cellular infrastructure, DSL access equipment and others.

Alcatel (originally short for Société Alsacienne de Constructions Atomiques, de Télécommunications et d'Électronique - roughly translates into: Alsatian Society of Atomic Constructions, Telecommunications and Electronics) was formed in Mulhouse as part of SACM, an engineering company group. It was absorbed in 1968 or 1970 by Compagnie industrielle des télécommunications (CIT), the telecom division of conglomerate CGE. CGE was nationalised by the French state under François Mitterrand in 1982, then privatised in 1987. The firm was renamed to Alcatel Alsthom in 1991, and finally to just Alcatel in 1998 after divesting Alstom, the railway vehicle manufacturer, to focus solely on telecommunications.

In 2006, Alcatel acquired the American telecom company Lucent Technologies and renamed itself to Alcatel-Lucent S.A.. Alcatel-Lucent itself was absorbed into Nokia in 2016. Today, the Alcatel name survives in Alcatel Submarine Networks (telecom), Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (software company), Alcatel Mobile (mobile telephones) and Atlinks (fixed-line telephones).