01/14/2024 – 6:25
On January 14, 1860, German businessman Werner von Siemens completed the installation of a submarine cable between Egypt and India. The transmission of information, in the mid-19th century, was an exercise in patience. A letter sent from London, for example, took 30 days to reach Calcutta. This situation, however, was revolutionized by telegraphy.
Even so, critics predicted the bankruptcy of Newall and Co. – the company responsible for the project. The submarine cable between England and the United States had just collapsed after sending just a few telegrams. According to experts, water pressure in the depths of the sea, over time, ruptured the insulation material used in telegraph lines.
Siemens precursor
Newall, however, ignored the arguments of the pessimists, convinced that it was embarking on a profitable business. Emerging global trade required rapid information. The work was accompanied by the greatest telegraphy specialist of the time, engineer Werner von Siemens (1816-1892), one of Siemens' precursors. The inventor of the pointer (quadrant) telegraph was supposed to supervise the installation of the cable and test its equipment.
According to Wolfgang Wengel, from the Communication Museum in Berlin, the English workers mocked the unfriendly Siemens, saying that the project was a “scientific blunder”. The submarine cable was laid with incredible precision and speed, but the first section across the Red Sea had initial operational problems.
After discovering and eliminating the defect, Werner von Siemens handed over final supervision to his friend William Meyer. The Siemens historical archive in Munich does not record an exact date for the completion of the work, mentioning January/February 1860 as a reference.
At that time, telegraphing was a privilege of big businessmen and governments. Newall, however, did not profit much from the Indian cape. According to Wengel, the connection worked satisfactorily for only five years. After suffering the first major damage, the cable was abandoned. It was impossible to pull it out of the seabed due to the weight of the coral colonies attached to it.
Telephony and optical cable
The next megaproject was the telegraph cable laid in 1870, between India and Europe – almost exclusively on dry land. With it, the transmission time for a message between London and Calcutta was reduced to just a few minutes. In the 20th century, however, telegraphy was replaced by telephony.
Since the rise of the internet and the liberalization of the global telecommunications market, old copper submarine cables have been replaced by a new technology: optical fiber.
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