| 1869 |
Western Electric Company, the manufacturing arm of Western Union, is founded. |
| 1876 |
Alexander Graham Bell put in a patent application for a device that would later become the telephone. |
| 1881 |
American Bell purchases a controlling interest in Western Electric. |
| 1925 |
Bell Laboratories are formed by the combined AT&T (formerly American Bell) and Western Electric's engineering departments. |
| 1937 |
Dr. Clinton J. Davisson became the first of 11 Nobel Prize winners from Bell Laboratories. |
| 1984 |
AT&T operations are divested. Western Electric becomes the Networks Systems Division of AT&T. |
| 1996 |
Lucent Technologies is created in spin-off of Bell Labs and the Network Systems Division from AT&T. The Optical Fiber Solutions division of Lucent Technologies continues to manage the fiber, cable and components business. |
| 1996 |
LYCOM becomes Lucent Technologies Denmark, which provides transmission and specialty fibers. |
| 1999 |
Lucent Technologies acquires Spectran Corp., a provider of transmission and specialty fibers. |
| 2001 |
The Lucent Technologies' Optical Fiber Solutions business is sold to Furukawa Electric (with minority ownership by CommScope). The new company becomes OFS, with headquarters in Norcross (in the outskirts of Atlanta), Georgia, and U.S.A. |
| 2004 |
Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd., becomes the whole owner of OFS through its subsidiary Furukawa Electric North America, Inc. |
