# Bell Labs Bell Labs is a historically important telecommunications and computing research institution. Its official history traces the organization to AT&T and Western Electric engineering groups, the 1925 creation of Bell Telephone Laboratories, the 1996 Lucent Technologies spin-off, the Alcatel-Lucent period, and Nokia’s 2016 acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent.[^history] [^history]: [Nokia Bell Labs — History](https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/history/)