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Doesn't a lot of these cables pre-date fiber? They had these in WWII. I remember the Gilligan's Island episode where the cable washes up in the lagoon and the p
by waynecochran 5y ago
Doesn't a lot of these cables pre-date fiber? They had these in WWII. I remember the Gilligan's Island episode where the cable washes up in the lagoon and the professor was able to connect up a phone so they call around the world -- of course Gilligan screws it all up at the end.
- gok 5y agoUntil the 1950s, transatlantic communication was done with radio. Then it was copper until the 80s
- jkepler 5y agoBut weren't the British Empire's undersea telegraph lines all copper? They lay the first transatlantic cable in 1858, connecting Ireland and Newfoundland. By 1911 their worldwide undersea network was completed, with so much redundancy that 49 cuts would have been necessary to isolate the United Kingdom from its empire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Red_Line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Red_Line
- azernik 5y agoNone of that stuff is still in service. (At least not telecom.) They require periodic, expensive maintenance, and fiber outclasses copper for long-distance signatures to a much greater degree than for the last-mile ground traffic for which copper is still used.
- seniorivn 5y agofiber quickly replaces copper ethernet in telecom in competitive markets (where 1gbps is an actual offer)