TAT-7 was the seventh

transatlantic telephone cable A transatlantic telecommunications cable is a submarine communications cable connecting one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, each cable was a single wire. After mid-century, coaxial cable came into us ...

, in operation from 1983 to 1994, initially carrying 4,000 3 kHz telephone circuits between

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, United States and

Porthcurno Porthcurno (, meaning ''"pinnacle cove"'', see below) is a small village covering a small valley and beach on the south coast of Cornwall, England in the United Kingdom. It is the main settlement in a civil parishes in England, civil and an ecc ...

in southwest England. It was owned by

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

British Telecom BT Group plc (formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-li ...

and

France Telecom Orange S.A. (; formerly , stylised as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation founded in 1988 and headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. ''Orange'' has been the corporation's main brand for mobile, ...

, and was the last copper cable to be laid across the Atlantic. Although

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

had been invented in 1970, this cable was still using

coaxial cable Coaxial cable, or coax (pronounced ), is a type of electrical cable consisting of an inner Electrical conductor, conductor surrounded by a concentric conducting Electromagnetic shielding, shield, with the two separated by a dielectric (Insulat ...

technology.

References

Infrastructure completed in 1983 Transatlantic communications cables United Kingdom–United States relations AT&T buildings BT Group buildings and structures Orange S.A. 1994 disestablishments in England 1983 establishments in England 1983 establishments in New Jersey 1994 disestablishments in New Jersey {{Telecomm-stub