The First Transatlantic Telephone Cable System - linking the old and new worlds

It is difficult to look back at the achievements that took place in the 1950s, especially in today’s situation with video links, computer simulation, the Internet and electronic mail all being available to enable speedy resolution of design and operational problems. No such things existed then and many calculations and designs were done by hand. One of the major successes was the concept not to do anything or employ anything that was not proven technology. This could be regarded perhaps as old hat but it was the reliability of everything used in the submarine sections that was paramount. Manufacture under totally dust free and hygienic facilities added a measure of ‘star wars’ type clothing and security. All was highlighted to good effect by the fact that we had no failures of the repeaters, but there were of course a few cable failures due to fishing activities off the Newfoundland fishing banks. Thanks to the decision to locate a cable ship already loaded with spare cable and repeaters off Newfoundland, any failure was of relatively short duration.