History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

1969 Portugal - England Cable

This cable from Sesimbra, Portugal to Goonhilly, England, was manufactured by Standard Telephones & Cables Ltd. and was owned and operated by the British GPO and the Portuguese CPRM (Companhia Portuguesa Rádio Marconi).

Laid by CS Alert (4), this cable was a UK link to SAT-1, the South Africa - Portugal cable, which was laid in 1968 and opened on 18 February 1969. The route of SAT-1 was Melkbosstrand, South Africa - Georgetown, Ascension - Baia da Mordeira, Cape Verde Islands - Santa Cruz, Tenerife - Sesimbra, Portugal.

System length of the Portugal - UK section was 951 nm; it was withdrawn from service in 1992.

The Portuguese medal shown below commemorates the 1969 inauguration of the Sesimbra cable station. In 1973 a radio link connected Sesimbra to the TAT-5 cable station at Conil, Spain.

Research Material Needed

The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible.

You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: billb@ftldesign.com