When was the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable service opened?
Technological and industrial history of 20th-century Canada through cable. By the later part of the decade several hundred communities were using this service. There was also technological innovation in the telephone system. The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable, jointly owned by the Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation, British Post Office and AT&T, was brought into service in 1956, paving the way for telephone calls from Canada to Britain and Europe. An improved cable, CANTAT was installed in 1961. A similar service on the west coast, COMPAC, the Commonwealth Pacific Cable System was inaugurated in 1963, linking Canada by undersea telephone cable with New Zealand and Australia. CN/CP Telecommunications introduced
Submarine communications cable and Fiji were also linked in 1902 with the trans-Pacific segment of the All Red Line. Japan was connected into the system in 1906. Service beyond Midway Atoll was abandoned in 1941 because of WWII, but the remainder remained in operation until 1951 when the FCC gave permission to cease operations. The first trans-pacific telephone cable was laid from Hawaii to Japan in 1964, with an extension from Guam to The Philippines. Also in 1964, the Commonwealth Pacific (COMPAC) cable, with 80 telephone channel capacity, opened for traffic from Sydney to Vancouver, and in 1967 the South East Asia Commonwealth