TRANSPAC or Trans-pacific cable (TPC) is a series of undersea cables under the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

Transpac 1

TRANSPAC-1 (TPC-1) was laid by AT&T's

cable ship A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications, for electric power transmission, military, or other purposes. Cable ships are distinguished by large cable sheaves for guid ...

C.S. ''Long Lines''. and opened on June 19, 1964. It connected

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

Midway Atoll Midway Atoll (colloquialism, colloquial: Midway Islands; ; ) is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the United States and is an Insular area#Unorganized unincorporated territories, unorganized and unincorpo ...

Wake Island Wake Island (), also known as Wake Atoll, is a coral atoll in the Micronesia subregion of the Pacific Ocean. The atoll is composed of three islets – Wake, Wilkes, and Peale Islands – surrounding a lagoon encircled by a coral reef. The neare ...

Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...

, and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. A branch from Guam to the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

was completed in December 1964. This cable connected with HAW-1 to complete the telephone connection to the

mainland United States The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America. The ter ...

. It had a capacity of 142 channels. TRANSPAC-1 was part of the network that supported the

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was a spaceflight conducted from July 16 to 24, 1969, by the United States and launched by NASA. It marked the first time that humans Moon landing, landed on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin l ...

Moon landing mission in 1969.

Transpac 2

In 1975, Transpac-2 (TPC-2) connected Guam,

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

and

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

with 845 channels.

Transpac 3

Transpac 3 (TPC-3), which went into service April 18, 1989, increased capacity to 3780 channels. This was the first fiber-optic cable across the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

, and it replaced the two existing copper cables (Transpac 1 and Transpac2) as well as satellite circuits being used at the time. It was laid from

Point Arena, California Point Arena, formerly known as Punta Arena ( Spanish for "Sandy Point") is a small coastal city in Mendocino County, California, United States. Point Arena is located west of Hopland, at an elevation of . The population was 460 at the 2020 ce ...

to Makaha, Hawaii, from which it goes to an undersea branching unit and splits to Chikura, Japan and Tanguisson,

TPC-5CN

The

TPC-5CN TPC-5CN or Trans-Pacific Cable 5 Cable Network is a submarine telecommunications cable system linking Japan, Guam, Hawaii and mainland United States. It has landing points in: * Ninomiya, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan * Bandon, Coos County, Oregon ...

cable network is a 25,000 km

fiberoptic 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 ...

ring, carrying 5 Gbit/s in each channel.

History

References