The AT&T High Seas Service was a radiotelephone service that provided ship to shore telephone calls which consisted of stations WOO (transmitter station in Ocean Gate, NJ (), receiver station in Manahawkin, New Jersey, USA),[1] WOM (Miami, Florida) and KMI (Point Reyes, California).
Contents |
Before satellite communication systems were widely available, the only way ships at sea had to communicate with the rest of the world was via radio connections to land stations. To talk to people who did not operate radio equipment, a vessel at sea would make contact with a land station, usually using high frequency single-sideband radio. The operator of the land station would patch the radio connection though to a telephone call made over the regular telephone system (referred to as a landline). The AT&T High Seas Service was a commercial radio-to-telephone connection system using the above land stations. The charges were typically settled by making the landline connection a collect call. Larger vessels maintained accounts with AT&T.
AT&T shut down all three stations on November 9, 1999.
It is believed that the only remaining commercial sources of high seas high frequency radiotelephone service in the US are stations WLO, WCL, KLB, and KNN, all run by Shipcomm Services, LLC.