300 tons under the International Maritime Organization Regulations. Sharing the seabed in harmony is something not easy to achieve, but it is not an impossible task. Government representatives are realizing that this is something that should be accomplished with new approaches and regulations for all ships. Otherwise, new problems to its economies and societies may surely arise, as submarine cables represent today the highways for the Information Society. To the present date, the strong collaborative approach between TIWS and local authorities contribute to achieve this goal of minimizing the risk of cable fault incidents.
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Dr. Andrés J. Fígoli Pacheco is working as a Senior Legal Counsel in Telefónica International Wholesale Services (TIWS) in Montevideo, Uruguay, since early 2002. He is responsible for TIWS regulatory issues relating to submarine cable systems and telecommunications services, and he also works in privacy and commercial issues relating contract negotiations. Andrés is a lecturer for cable submarines in many organizations and also is currently a Commercial Law Assistant Professor at Law School, Universidad de la República.
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The First Atlantic Telegraph To achieve this historic crossing, the Atlantic Telegraph company ordered 2,500 nautical miles (1nm = 6,086ft or 1.8553km) of insulated copper core from the Gutta Percha Company which was located at 18 Wharf Road, City Road, Islington in London. The price in the contract for the core was £40/ nm. The delicate core was armoured at two separate locations by two companies: R S Newall & Co of Birkenhead (on the river Mersey in Liverpool) and Glass, Elliot & Co (at Enderby Wharf, Christchurch Way, Greenwich on the river Thames in London). Each company had a contract for 1,250nm of armouring at £62/nm. A myth has grown up that the two companies adopted different approaches to applying the armouring, one using a left hand lay the other using a right hand lay; however, no documentary evidence has been brought to light to confirm this. Glass, Elliot & Co completed its armouring on the 6th July 1857 and shortly afterwards the British Royal Navy ship HMS Agamemnon moored off the factory to commence loading the cable, a process that was completed by the third week in July. As part of the celebrations before the Agamemnon sailed, Sir John Wollfe Culling Eardley, 3rd Baronet, with a country seat at Belvedere House (near Erith in Kent, just down river from Greenwich) held a fête champêtre (large garden party) for the factory
workers, officers and men of the Agamemnon and senior members of Glass, Elliot & Co and the Atlantic Telegraph Co. This party was reported in some detail in the Times of 24th July 1857. One of the Directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company present at the party was John Watkins Brett, the pioneer of the 1850 and 1851 Dover to Calais cables. He presented Sir Culling Eardley with two cross sections of the cable set in twisted silver as pendants for his daughters; Isabella and Frances (See Image). The Greenwich factory of Glass, Elliot & Company was established on the site of Küper’s, a steel rope maker, in 1854. In 1864, Glass, Elliot became part of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company and the worlds leading supplier of submarine telegraph cable for over 70 years. From 1935 until 1970, the site was part of Submarine Cables Ltd, when it was taken over by STC. Cable manufacture on the site ceased in 1976 and the last ship loaded there was the C.S. John W Mackay. In 1994, STC Submarine Systems was taken over by Alcatel. The water front part of the site has recently been sold off for development but the rest of the site remains Alcatel-Lucent’s repeater manufacturing facility to this day. It has been associated with the submarine cable industry for well over 100 years.
Header Images courtesy of www.Atlantic-Cable.com * Medallion photo courtesy of stewart ash