THE BROKEN BELL: An Insider's View: The Breakup of Bell Laboratories

This memoir describes the breakup of Bell Telephone Laboratories as the result of the divesture of the local operating companies from AT&T in 1984. This divesture was required by Judge Greene and resulted in the need to separate the 26,000 Bell Labs personnel into different companies, serving separate telephone entities. The memoir is told by the author, Joe Mullins, from his personal perspective. He was responsible for determining the details of how this split was to be done. The book also describes some other episodes in the author's life. These include involvement in the development of the first optical fiber telephone system, supervision of major telecommunication software, and in the establishment of a modern university manufacturing engineering program.