PTAT-1

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PTAT-1 is the first privately financed transatlantic fiber optic cable, which was completed in 1989, at a cost of $400 million US dollars. It is maintained by C&W and Sprint/PSI and connects between Manasquan, New Jersey, USA, Devonshire, Bermuda to Ballinspittle, Ireland, and Brean, England for a distance of 7,552 kilometres.

The significance of PTAT-1 is that it broke the international telecommunication monopoly held by AT&T and British Telecom for communications between the US and UK. When PTAT-1 filed for its Cable Landing License under the 1934 Cable Landing Act the idea of competitive international telecommunications was widely condemned by the international telecommunication establishment, i.e. the PTTs. By the time PTAT-1 was placed into service in 1989 competition was widely accepted.

PTAT-1 was built by a joint venture of a small private US company, Private TransAtlantic Telecommunication System Inc. (founded as TelOptik in 1984) and Cable & Wireless plc of the UK. The submarine system was provided by STC and the US shore end was built by Lightwave Spectrum.

The UK to US section of the cable was shut down just after 2.00 a.m. on 8th February 2004 as it was no longer considered financially viable by Cable & Wireless. Competitors to the cable had dropped their prices drastically after they re-emerged from Chapter 11 with little or no debts to service, something C&W was unable to compete with.