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

1984 ANZCAN Cable

Laid as a replacement for COMPAC, ANZCAN followed the same route from Australia and New Zealand to Canada, with the addition of a landing at Norfolk Island. The cable was 8,250 nm long, with 1,213 repeaters and a capacity of 1,380 telephone circuits.

STC Commemorative Medallion for ANZCAN Scans courtesy of Jim Jones

Cable operations on ANZCAN began in 1982. CS Cable Venture laid 6,300 nm of cable from Vancouver to Sydney. CS Mercury laid the Norfolk Island - Auckland section of 730 nm as well as 1,220 nm of the Vancouver - Sydney cable. HMNZS Monowai surveyed the route and CS Retriever undertook the rerouting of part of the Fiji - Auckland COMPAC cable. CS Cable Enterprise laid the shore ends at Hawaii, CS Retriever (5) the Fiji shore ends, MV Chantik those at Norfolk Island and CS Mercury at Sydney and Auckland.

Standard Telephone and Cables Ltd. manufactured all of the Vancouver - Sydney cable. Fujitsu manufactured the Norfolk Island - Auckland cable.

In 1984 Standard Telephone and Cables Ltd (STC) celebrated its part in manufacturing ANZCAN with a commemorative medallion, which was given to all employees. Jim Jones, who was working at STC in Greenwich at the time, supplied the scans of his medallion shown above.

The Canada - Hawaii section of ANZCAN was withdrawn from service in November 1997; Fiji - Norfolk Island followed in March 2001, and the rest of the cable ceased operation in May 2002.

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