Communications Under The Seas - The Evolving Cable Network and its Implications 9780262012867

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Communications

under the Seas

The Evolving Cable Network and Its /111plicatio11s edited by Bernard Finn and Daqing Yang By the end of the twentieth century, fiber-optic technology had made possible a worldwide communications system of breathtaking speed and capacity.T his amazing network is the latest evolution

Communications

under the Seas

of communications

technologies that began with

undersea telegraph cables in the 1850s and continued with coaxial telephone cables a hundred

'T'beEvolving Cable Network and Its Implications

years later. Com1111111imtio11s 1111der the Seas traces the development of these technologies and assessestheir social, economic, and political effects. If we cannot predict the ultimate consequences of today's wired world-its

impact on economic markets, free ex-

pression, and war and peace-or

the outcome of

the conflict between wired and wireless technology, we can examine how similar issues have been dealt with in the past. The expert contributors to this volume do just that, discussing technical development~ in undersea cables (and the development of competing radio and satellite communications technology), management of the cables by private and public interests, and theit impact on military and political activities. Chapters cover such topics as the daring group of nineteenth-century

edited by

Bernard Finn and Daqing Yang

entrepreneurs who wove a

network of copper wires around the world (and then turned conservative with success); the opening of the telegraphic network the government-

to general public use;

and industry-forced

merger of

wireless and cable companies in Uritain; and the iJ11pactof the cable network on diplomacy during the two world wars.

COMMUNICATIONS

UNDER

THE SEAS

~

2009 Massachusetts Institute ofrechnology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please em.ail special_sales@mitpress .mit.edu This book was set in Bembo by The MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Communications under the seas : the evolving cable network and its implications / edited by Bernard Finn and Daqing Yang. p. cm. - (Dibner Institute studies in the history of science and technology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-01286-7 (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. Cables, Subm.arine--History. 2. Telecommunication-Social aspects-History. 3. Communication, International. I. Finn, Bernard S., 1932- II. Yang, Daqing, 1964TKS 103.15.C66 2009 621.387'8409162-dc22 2008042011

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

CONTRIBUTORS

THE

1

Vll

TECHNOLOGICAL

INTRODUCTION

CHALLENGE

3

Bernard Finn and Daqing Yang 2

A

SUBMARINE TELEGRAPHY:

STUDY IN TECHNICAL STAGNATION

9

Bernard Finn 3

BRIDGING THE GAP:THE

CABLE AND ITS CHALLENGERS,

1918-1988

25

Jonathan Reed Winkler 4

FIBER-OPTIC GLASS

SUBMARINE CABLES: COVERING THE OCEAN FLOOR WITH

45

Jeff Hecht THE NETWORK

MANAGING

5

ThE

INTERNATIONAL TELEGRAPH UNION:THE

THE GOVERNMENTS

CABLE COMPANIES AND

61

Jorma Ahvenainen 6

ThE ORIGINS

OF CABLE AND WIRELESS LIMITED,

1918-1939:

CAPITALISM, IMPERIALISM, AND TECHNICAL CHANGE

81

Robert Boyce 7

SMALL NATION, INTERNATIONAL SUBMARINE TELEGRAPHY, AND INTERNATIONAL PoL1ncs:ThE COMPANY,

1869-1940

Kurt Jacobsen

115

GREAT NORTHERN TELEGRAPH

vi

CONTENTS

8

jE T'AIME, MOI NON PLUS:ThE CABLES AND THE COMPLEXITY

1870--1960

DEVELOPMENT

OF ATLANTIC SUBMARINE

OF THE FRENCH-AMERICAN

DIALOGUE,

159

Pascal Griset NATIONS

9

AND NETWORKS

STRATEGIC AND MILITARY ASPECTS OF SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH CABLES,

1851-1945 185 Daniel R. Headrick

10

SUBMARINE CABLES AND DIPLOMATIC

CULTURE

209

David Paull Nickles

11

SUBMARINE CABLES AND THE

T\vo JAPANESE EMPIRES

227

DaqingYang CONCLUSIONS

12

AND COMMENTARY

ThE GEOPOLITICAL

IMPLICATIONS OF COMMUNICATION

UNDER THE

257 Peter J. Hugill SEAS

APPENDIX: CABLES

ARCHIVAL

279

BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

293

287

SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY

OF SUBMARINE

CONTRIBUTORS

Jorma Ahvenainen

Professor of History, Emeritus,Jyvaskyla University

Robert Boyce Senior Lecturer in International History, London School of Economics and Political Science Bernard Finn Curator of Electrical Collections, Emeritus, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution Pascal Griset Centre de Recherche en Histoire de ]'Innovation, Universite Paris-Sorbonne Daniel R. Headrick

Professor Emeritus of Social Science and History,

Roosevelt University

Jeff Hecht Freelance science and technology writer, Boston correspondent: New Sdentist magazine, Contributing editor: l.AserFocusWorld Peter J. Hugill Professor in the Department of Geography and in International Affairs Program of the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University Kurt Jacobsen Professor and Director of the Centre for Business History, Copenhagen Business School David Paull Nickles

Historian, U.S. Department of State

Jonathan Reed Winkler Wright State University

Assistant Professor, Department

of History,

Daqing Yang Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, George Washington University

THE TECHNOLOGICAL

CHALLENGE

1 INTRODUCTION

Bernard Finn and Daqing Yang

On December 26, 2006, a 7 .1 magnitude earthquake took place under the ocean offTaiwan and caused widespread disruption to telephone and Internet connections in East and Southeast Asia. A little over a year later, in early 2008, damage to cables near Alexandria and elsewhere in the Middle East-its causes still a mystery-affected over 80 million Internet users in the region and in locations like India and Pakistan. Although rerouting helped reduce the adverse impact on business and personal activities to some extent, such incidents reminded the world that, for all the excitement about new technologies such as Wi-Fi, mobile networks, and communication satellites, the bulk of its long-distance communication remains dependent on what one newspaper called "altogether older technology: cables under the earth's oceans." As the public realized that full repairs to these damaged cables would take weeks, if not months, another newspaper remarked that "workers are relying on 19th century technology to fix a 21st century problem." 1 In the closing decade of the twentieth century we were presented with a worldwide communications system of breathtaking speed and capacity. Economically it was spawned by society's voracious appetite for information, especially as generated by computers and fed over the Internet. Technologically it was fueled by low-loss optical fibers, an indication of the increasing importance of science in an industry that for its first century paid little attention to research. The implications for society of these advances in communications speed and capacity are difficult to predict. Will they bring greater stability to economic markets or make them more erratic? Will they encourage the expression of multiple voices or the dominance of a few? Will their net effect be to serve the cause of peace or of strife? And will the conflict between wired and wireless be settled-at least for the twenty-first century-in favor of the wires, or will the ether (presumably with the assistance of satellites) mount an effective response? If we cannot predict how these issues will be played out in the decades ahead, we can at least examine how they have been dealt with in the past.

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