The TAT, or TAT 8 was the eighth-ever transatlantic submarine communications cable and the first ever successfully

deployed submarine fiber optic cable. A submarine communications cable is just what it sounds like,

a cable that is placed upon the seabed connecting one body of land to another. The earliest of these

cables were installed in the 1850s, and they carried telegraphy

messages along the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, connecting an island in western Ireland to a place

called Hearts Content, in eastern Newfoundland in Canada. This cable, though quite simple by

today's standards, it was made up of seven copper wires, covered in a type of natural

latex called gutta percha, which was derived from the sap of a tree with the same name, then bound

in hemp covered with tar, before being sheathed with iron wires arranged in a tight helix. Despite

that relative simplicity, it was immensely futuristic for its day.

This cable connected two telegraph stations on different continents,

and the successful connection reduced communication time between North America and Europe

from around 10 days to mere minutes.

A bogglingly valuable upgrade, despite the many issues that had to be overcome

during the initial deployment, including just getting the operators at both ends on the same

page as to how the thing was to be used, which was itself a minor adventure.

The aforementioned TAT-8 then was the eighth such cable, and it went into operation

in 1988. It was also the first to utilize fiber optic technology, so rather than sending

electric pulses along a metal wire, it would send pulses of light through a core of glass

or plastic, which was coated to keep the light

isolated, but also to protect that relatively fragile core.

The TAT-8 had two functional pairs of optical fibers within its core, alongside a backup pair,

...