TRANSATLANTIC TELEPHONE CABLE — AFFEL 297 



tion by submarine cable. With the completion of this project, tele- 

 phone service between the two continents should enter a new era 

 marked by improved quality of service and reliability. Capacity for 

 growth will no longer be. restricted by the limited capacity of the radio 

 spectrum. 



Certain advantages of the radio will remain, however: flexibility, 

 the speed with which communications can be established and switched 

 from route to route, direct access to one country from another, rela- 

 tively lower cost, etc. These are not inconsiderable advantages and 

 they augur for the continued importance of shortwave radio-telephone 

 services. 



On the other hand, the new transatlantic cable will by no means 

 represent all that could be done if full advantage could be taken of con- 

 temporary teclmiques. The submarine cable art is a conservative one. 

 As Dr. Buckley observed, the laying of a deep-water submarine cable, 

 like any other activity on the high seas, must be planned with its mi- 

 avoidable hazards in mind, and experience over 100 years has showm 

 that in such a project it is better to be safe than sorry. 



But the consequences of this doctrine of caution are equally plain. 

 The submerged repeaters in the 1956 deep-water cable section incor- 

 porate tubes whose proven design dates back to 1941. On the other 

 hand, more recently designed tubes provide superior performance and 

 these are the types that will be used in the system between Newfound- 

 land and Nova Scotia, where the consequences of tube failure will be 

 minimized. The integrity of such postwar tubes, under the severe and 

 higlJy specialized conditions of installation and use, remains to be 

 established. However, with such new types of tubes, it is certain 

 that cable systems with still greater communication capacity can be 

 realized. 



Looking still farther ahead, the transistor looms as a development 

 which has the potentialities of making possible long, deep-water sub- 

 marine cables with much greater communication capacity than can 

 be realized with repeaters employing vacuum tubes. The voltage re- 

 quired by the tubes sets an upper limit on the number of them that can 

 be operated in tandem before the power supply results in voltages 

 on the cable that are beyond the limits of safety. The much lower 

 power drain of the transistor would overcome this obstacle and permit 

 more repeaters to be used and wider frequency bands to be accommo- 

 dated. Ruggedness, long life, and small size are added attractive 

 features of the transistor which are of not inconsiderable importance 

 to the future development of submarine cables. 



A transatlantic submarine television cable is a long-range goal 

 worthy of serious study and by no means to be dismissed as impractical 

 of attainment. 



