Transatlantic Communications - An Historical Resume

JANUARY 1957 American Telephont and Telegraph Company Transatlantic Communications-- An Historical Resume By DR. MERVIN J. KELLY* and SIR GORDON RADLEYf (Manuscript received July 30, 1956) The papers that follow describe the design, manufacture and installation of the first transatlantic telephone cable system with all its component parts, including the connecting microwave radio-relay system in Nova Scotia. The purpose of this introduction is to set the scene in which this project was undertaken, and to discuss the technical contribution it has made to the development of world communications. Electrical communication between the two sides of the North Atlantic started in 1866. In that year the laying of a telegraph cable between the British Isles and Newfoundland was successfully completed. Three previous attempts to establish transatlantic telegraph communication by submarine cable had failed. These failures are today seen to be the result of insufficient appreciation of the relation between the mechanical design of the cable and the stresses to which it is subjected as it is laid in the deep waters of the Atlantic. The making and laying of deep sea cables was a new art and designers had few experiments to guide them. During the succeeding ninety years, submarine telegraph communication cables have been laid all over the world. Cable design has evolved from the simple structure of the first transatlantic telegraph cable -- a * Bell Telephone Laboratories, f British Post Office.