George E. Pake Prize Lecture

Over the past decade, a combination of the changes in the regulatory environment coupled with accelerating advances in technology caused the telecommunications industry to experience first an accelerated growth `boom' followed by a major `bust' - perhaps corresponding to the worst downturn in its history. Throughout this turbulent time, Bell Lab’s parent company, Lucent, has transformed itself from a vertically integrated \$38B telecomm systems company with 157k employees in 11 separate businesses into a horizontally layered, \$9B network infrastructure systems integrator with 32K employees and ~100 major customers. My talk will relate to how Bell Labs Research has weathered the `perfect storm', survived, and still maintains its focus on the future of telecommunications science and technology.