Undersea Telephone Cable
1956 - first transatlantic telephone cable link, September 26. It was a joint project of American Telephone and Telegraph, British General Post Office, and Canadian Overseas Telecommunications. The cable had a capacity that could handle 588 simultaneous transatlantic telephone conversations.
1988 - first fiber-optic transatlantic Telephone cable, TAT-8. The cable is 6,600 km long and has a capacity of 37,500 simultaneous telephone conversations. This is a joint project of AT&T, British Telecom International, and DGT of France.
Today Optical Networks Span the Globe
- Intercontinental networks using new fiber-optic technology carry huge amounts of data around the world.
- New intercontinental fiber-optic systems are configured as networks.
- The corporations that own the networks anticipate very large profits.