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ndersea cable networks deployed around the world carry close to 100 percent of all intercontinental communications traffic, but they’re not a new phenomenon by any means. In fact, this week is the 150-year anniversary of the first reliable trans-Atlantic telegraph cable that was put into service way back in 1866. You’re not hallucinating; it was indeed a century and a half ago! The 1866 submarine cable snaked along the Atlantic Ocean seabed to connect Telegraph Field at Foilhommerum Bay on Valentia Island (Ireland) to Heart’s Content in Newfoundland (now part of Canada). The 1866 cable wasn’t actually the first trans-Atlantic submarine cable though; it was the fourth attempt, though the first which was successful, after multiple failed attempts in 1857, 1858, and 1865. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again – and they did. The first message successfully sent across a trans-Atlantic cable occurred on August 16, 1858 and ushered in an era of drastically reduced communication times. Before submarine telegraph cables, the speed of trans-Atlantic communication was the speed of the fastest ship that carried a handwritten message between North America and Europe, which took about a week and of-
ten much longer due to the notoriously bad weather and rough seas of the North Atlantic. The 1858 trans-Atlantic telegraph cable allowed for (short) messages and responses to be received in the same day – 19th century instant messaging. Although modern submarine cables dwarf the transmission performance of the first submarine telegraph cables, the latter was still an impressive feat nonetheless and laid the foundation for mankind’s biggest engineering feat ever – the global Internet. 19th Century Telecommunication Visionaries Over 150 years ago, several visionaries dreamt of telegraph cables connecting the New World to the Old World across the vast
expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. As Steve Jobs once said, “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do,” and this was also the case back in the 1850s – dream big or go home! The Atlantic Telegraph Company was the muscle behind the construction of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, which began in 1854 and was completed a few years later in 1858. Unfortunately, the cable worked for just three weeks before catastrophically failing, but was an impressive feat that provided invaluable experience, knowledge, anger, pain, and sorrow, all of which were leveraged in the next cable attempt. Before the premature death of the 1858 cable, it did send the
first telegram across the Atlantic Ocean on August 16 stating “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will to all men.” Queen Victoria later sent a message to American President James Buchanan stating “an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on their common interest and reciprocal esteem” to which Buchanan responded, “it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the