Talk:Transatlantic communications cable

Consistency?
In the table at the bottom why are some entries listed as "England" and "Scotland" while others are listed as "United Kingdom"? England and Scotland are part of the United Kingdom. For the sake of consistency one form should be used (either all home nations or all UK). Rob McDougall 20:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Global Crossing
A private competitor during the 1990s was Global Crossing.

This minor note somewhat understates the fact that (despite the fact that Global Crossing is in bankruptcy proceedings) that their AC-1 (Atlantic Crossing 1) cable is one of the major transatlantic cables today.

Source
See also Aronsson's Telecom History Timeline and feel free to use information there for Wikipedia. --user:LA2

TAT-14 capacity?
According to http://www.tat-14.com/ the current capacity for TAT-14 is 640Gbit/s.. Has it been upgraded after it was installed?

TAT-1 channels?
The listing of Transatlantic Telephone cables shows TAT-1, which was put into service in late 1956, as having 36 (voice) channels. This may be incorrect? My recollection is, that across the Atlantic from Shoal Harbour, near Clarenville Newfoundland to/from Oban Scotland TAT-1 had 24 channels. The Atlantic crossing was a two cable system; one East to West the other West to East using equipment supplied by the ATT (American Telephone and Telegrah) Long Lines Division. There were submarine repeaters across the Atlantic powered from both ends of the cable. Repeaters Approximately every 30 miles?

From Newfoundland to North Sydney Nova Scotia, my recollection that a 36 channel system supplied by the British GPO (General Post Office) was used. The repeaters on this system were more closely spaced than across the Atlantic because of the wider bandwidth required by both directions of transmission on a single cable and because there were 12 more channels than across the Atlantic. I worked for a company that in 1956 rented some of those 12 'additional' channels to provide telephone circuits from St. John's Newfoundland to, initially, St. John New Brunswick and eventually to other Canadian cities. We started off with 2 circuits, which was rapidly increased, if I recall correctly to at least 8 by early 1957. That TAT-1 had 24 channels would appear to be confirmed by the fact that TAT-2, which apparently used identical/similar technology, which was installed a year or two later also had 24 channels.

Submarine communications cable
Submarine communications cable seems more appropriate title for the more modern fiber cables ? Regardless, I have just done SAFE (cable) and would love someone to do a nice table for the other cables than TAT*. Wizzy 08:29, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Who's first, TAT-8 or CANTAT-1?
TAT-8 is claimed here and in its own article to be the first fibre-optic cable, laid in 1988. Our table also lists CANTAT-1 as a fibre-optic cable, however, and it was apparently laid in 1961. Its low capacity makes me think that the fibre-optic designation is a typo. While CANTAT-1 article is unhelpful on this point, a Web page called International Fiber Links lists CANTAT-1 as "pre-fibre". Should we change the table to show CANTAT-1 as being "galvanic"? —Eric S. Smith 20:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Cost, Details on laying cable
Does anyone know the cost to lay these things? How is it done? Is it one boat that drags one enormous cable across the ocean? What happens if there is a fault in the middle? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.113.120.82 (talk) 15:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

They are laid using a specially modified ship that can carry huge amounts of cable onboard - they can lay up to 200km per day. The cost will vary according to the route and the type of cable etc and over time but it is going to be at least $100m maybe $500m. There are frequently faults in cables - they regularly get cut (usually by accident but sometimes on purpose). So there are more boats that have to go fix the things.SandrinaHatman (talk) 23:51, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Move to Transatlantic telecommunications cable
Transatlantic telephone cable → Transatlantic telecommunications cable — The main bulk data transmitted through these cables today represent non-phonetic information, that is, mainly of other types than sounds. I guess the video-downloading over the Atlantic itself accounts for a larger amount. Current naming does not provide an appropriate target to describe the transfer medium for all those other types of data. If moving, the first article sentence should instead read just information rather than telephone traffic, and perhaps link to telecommunications cable as well. Mikael Häggström (talk) 15:30, 6 January 2011 (UTC) ✅--Kotniski (talk) 10:49, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I fixed the major "what links here"-links from individual cable articles. Mikael Häggström (talk) 07:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Disposal, if any, of obsolete cables
When cables become obsolete or redundant are they left on the sea bed or taken up for scrap? Presumably the old copper based ones would have a high scrap value (although the fiber-optic ones would not). I have never seen any information on this. Barney Bruchstein (talk) 17:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Far as I know, the price of scrap copper has never been high enough to make that happen. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes it does happen - increasingly so because of the value and more awareness of recycling etc. There was a ship CRS Holland that did this for cable owners. I saw estimates in 2016 that 90%+ of cable was still on the seabed representing billions of dollars worth of copper etc The CRS Holland was reeling in a couple of million pounds worth a year.SandrinaHatman (talk) 23:58, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Atlantis-2
Ran across this article while looking for something else. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Link goes to wrong page
The "Emerald Express" link goes to a page which redirects to "Emerald Express (EmX)" which is something to do with a bus service. Not sure what to do about it, but just thought I'd highlight the potential issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.1.197 (talk) 18:01, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Currently Emerald Express links to a "buy this Name" site.

Emerald Atlantis does not exist anymore, it was renamed Emerald Express. Emerald Express does not exist anymore, it was purchased by? renamed to? AEConnect which finally completed the transatlantic cable in November of 2015. I am far from an expert in the field, and do not feel competent to edit this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.145.3.21 (talk) 15:39, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thank you for the alert. I know even less about the topic, but a quick Web search apparently confirms. I hope other editors will check my work for errors. Jim.henderson (talk) 11:57, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Transatlantic communications cable. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20160111100643/http://aronsson.se/hist.html to http://aronsson.se/hist.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Archive link was to a 404, fixed it by changing it to an earlier date. Hitechcomputergeek (talk) 21:42, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 16:30, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

"Private" cables?
What exactly does this mean? Why are the TAT and CANTAT cables not private? Are they government subsidized, rather than run for profit? Why are they "non-TAT" cables? If "TAT" means "Transatlantic telephone", then it seems to be suggesting that they aren't transatlantic, but then the one that entry that actually lists where the cable runs makes it clear that it, at least, does run across the Atlantic. I think this section could be clarified a bit, because it's not at all clear right now. AnnaGoFast (talk) 18:54, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
 * It makes a distinction between those provided by consortia of telecoms companies and those provided by non-traditional telcos or other types of company. However, I think this distinction is obsolete and it makes things confusing. eg Telecoms companies now participate in private cable consortia and the majority of cables being laid are financed differently these days (often by the so-called digital or OTT companies). I vote that we merge the lists as so long as ownership is clear it doesn't serve much purpose to separate them like this. SandrinaHatman (talk) 07:45, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Currency of list
I've added some of the most recent cables and built pages for them. However, I can find no information about Midgardsormen which is the one red item on the list. I assume it is a failed project or was subsumed into one of the other projects. The link provided by whoever added it goes to some random page. I vote to delete this row.SandrinaHatman (talk) 07:40, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

How long was the 7/27/1866 cable in use?
The article says "It was active until 1965." Really? 99 years seems unrealistic. Although a reference is cited, I'm not able to access the reference. Also, the external link https://atlantic-cable.com/Cables/CableTimeLine/atlantic.htm says "The 1866 cable was abandoned in 1872." which seems more realistic. Of course, it's possible that the "It" in that sentence refers to something besides the cable. It's not clear to me. Mpwrmnt (talk) 13:44, 29 September 2023 (UTC)