SG Undersea Cable System: Introduction and Development Plan

Communications traffic across the North Atlantic has increased around 20 percent per annum for some years, carried partly by cable and partly by satellite. This growth continued beyond 1970, following the start of service on the then-newest undersea cable facility, an SF system called TAT-5, in March of that year. 1 There was no reason to think that the growth rate would fall significantly in the next decade. Satellites were carrying a significant part of the North Atlantic traffic, and it was generally recognized that both cable and satellite technologies should be carried forward to their maximum potential. This provided the impetus for pursuing the new cable technology designated SG. In this paper, we do not discuss the merits of the different transmission technologies or predict future deployment. Instead, we devote our attention to the development of the SG undersea cable system, which as 2313 TAT-6 (3400 nmi long) was turned up for initial service on July 27,1976 between the United States and France.