CANTAT (Canadian Trans-Atlantic Telephone). Planning for this cable began in 1957 and it opened in 1961. It had 80 telephone circuits, which Commonwealth ‘experts’ thought would satisfy demand for the next 20 years. This estimate was out by a factor of 100, and traffic over the cable trebled in the first year of opening. It was able to cope with the traffic for only 3 years rather than 20. From that time, telecommunications traffic doubled every 3 years.

FOLLOWING THE LAYING of the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable in 1956, Cable & Wireless began to be a major player in this new telecommunications arena, laying numerous telephone cables around the world. The most significant of these cables were CANTAT, SEACOM and COMPAC which combined to make up a Round-the-World Commonwealth telephone system.

The CANTAT, COMPAC and SEACOM cables	COMPAC opened in December 1963 and linked Vancouver to Sydney across the Pacific via Fiji. It was opened by HM the Queen with an inaugural call of 14,000 miles from London to Ottawa, Sydney, Wellington and Suva (Fiji). This picture of the opening ceremony in Ottawa was received via the COMPAC cable.	A commemorative stamp.	A diagram showing the components of a 1960’s cable.	A commemorative stamp.

See Also
Cable Making Cableships Cable & Wireless Marine