Intercontinental Telephone Communication

Intercontinental calls connect people around the world.

Though connecting via telephone to almost anywhere in the world feels very natural today, the technology that supports these connections took decades to develop and includes a combination of wires, satellites and new technology.

History

While the history of intercontinental telephone connections originated with Alexander Graham Bell's 1876 invention of the telephone itself, the first intercontinental conversation did not take place until American Telephone and Telegraph, now known as AT&T, laid the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable in 1927. The fist intercontinental service connected callers in New York and London.

Satellites

As technology evolved, AT&T recognized a need for more simultaneous intercontinental telephone connections. In 1960, according to the official NASA website, the company filed an intent to launch a satellite that would carry experimental telephone traffic. AT&T worked with RCA to develop and built the satellite, and by the mid-1960s, six different orbiting satellites carried voice conversations around the world.

Potential

Though intercontinental telephone conversations have traditionally traversed satellite and physical connections, the rise of the Internet in the 1990s provided a new medium for these calls. By breaking voice conversations into bits of data and routing them across the Internet, Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, technology will likely provide additional channels for intercontinental conversations at significantly lower costs than satellite or cable.

References

• NASA: Communications Satellites - Making the Global Village Possible
• AT&T: Milestones in AT&T History
• Connected Earth: Laying the First Transatlantic Telephone Cable
• Which VOIP: VOIP History