Standard Telecommunication Laboratories was the UK research centre for

Standard Telephones and Cables Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd (later STC public limited company, plc) was a British manufacturer of telephone, telegraph, radio, telecommunications, and related equipment. During its history, STC invented and developed several groundbreakin ...

(STC). Initially based in Enfield, North London, and moved to Harlow Essex in 1959. STC was a subsidiary of ITT.

Notable Achievements

It is now recognised as the birthplace of optical fibre communications, for it is here that Sir Charles K. Kao, George Hockham and others pioneered the use of single-mode optical fibre made from low loss glass. In 2009 Charles Kao was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, for pioneering optical fibre communication. Another famous name associated with STL is Alec Reeves, previously famous for inventing

pulse-code modulation Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the amplitud ...

while working at the Paris labs of the parent company ITT in 1938, and for his invention of the wartime bomber navigation system OBOE. Alec headed a team working on various means of optical communication, prior to the emergence of glass optical fibre as the leading contender.

Ownership

In 1991, the laboratories became a part of Bell Northern Research (BNR), following the acquisition of STC by Northern Telecom, which later became

Nortel Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It was founded in ...

. Nortel subsequently encountered financial difficulties, and was broken up and sold off. The last remnants of the laboratories at the Harlow, Essex site, have now disappeared.

Redevelopment Of Laboratories Site

Since the collapse of Nortel, the site has been redeveloped into a new high-technology business development called KAOPARK.

References

External links

A Brief History of STL - By Vi Maile
{{coord missing, Essex Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Enfield Buildings and structures in Essex Fiber-optic communications Harlow History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom ITT Inc. Research and development organizations Research institutes in England Science and technology in Essex Telecommunications organizations