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

Italcable
by Bill Glover

ITALCABLE

Until 1924 most Italian overseas cablegrams were transmitted over foreign cables. In that year Italcable Servizi Cablografici (Italcable) ordered just over 9000 nm of cable to provide service from Italy to South America via intermediate points. On completion of the system in 1925 a commemorative medal was issued, together with other souvenir items.

Four companies manufactured and laid the system’s cables as follows.

Anzio, Italy - Malaga, Spain; 1005 nm long, manufactured by Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke and laid by Citta di Milano (2). The 870 nm cable between Malaga - Las Palmas, Canary Islands was manufactured by the same company and laid by the same ship.

Italcable Las Palmas office 1 September 1925

Italcable Las Palmas staff 1 September 1925

Italcable Las Palmas staff and cable instruments 1 November 1925

The photographs above are courtesy of site visitor Pam Jackson, whose great-uncle Cassie Gibb worked for Italcable at Las Palmas in the 1920s. Mr Gibb is at the far right of the front row in the middle photograph above. The photograph below, taken from the Italcable 1921-1981 anniversary book, shows the Las Palmas building a little closer to completion than Mr Gibbs’ photo above..

The two photographs below are also courtesy of Pam Jackson, and were taken by her great-uncle Cassie Gibb at Italcable’s Anzio station in February 1925. The cable office at Anzio was in a similar style to the Las Palmas building shown above, and the views in the photographs are of the cable hut, the small building near the shore where the cable was terminated.

Cable hut and station staff at Anzio

Two Italian employees with station equipment The two photographs below, courtesy of Donard de Cogan, show the cable landing site at Anzio, with the cable hut near the edge of the cliff and the rear of the main station building a little further inland.

Detail of cable hut

The Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Telcon) were contracted to manufacture and lay a 1337 nm cable between Malaga and Horta, Azores. CS Colonia installed the cable. At Horta a link was established with the Western Union New York - Horta cable.

When Western Union abandoned the New York - Horta cable in 1966, Italcable leased circuits in TAT 2 and TAT 4.

A 963 nm cable, manufactured by Pirelli, was laid between Las Palmas and Cape St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, using CS Citta di Milano (2) to carry out the installation.

Siemens Bros manufactured the 1513 nm cable laid between Cape St. Vincent and Fernando Noronha, Brazil and the 1824 nm cable from Fernando Noronha to Rio de Janeiro, using CS Faraday (2) to lay both cables.

The 1203 nm cable from Rio de Janeiro to Montevideo was manufactured by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company and laid by CS Colonia; as were the two 200 nm. cables laid between Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

Other cables laid were Anzio - Barcelona - Malaga in 1927, Malaga - Lisbon and Anzio - Palermo - Cagliari in 1929.

CS Dominia laid a cable from Lisbon to La Panne in Belgium in 1930.

1938 Rio de Janeiro - Santos, Brazil. 1951 the Fernando Noronha - Rio de Janeiro cable was rerouted to Recife and two years later CS Monarch (4) linked Recife and Cape St. Vincent.

Above: Italcable publicity card and special meter cancellation for the Milan Exhibition of 1928
Below: Italcable publicity card for the 1930 exposition in Antwerp (Anvers), Belgium 1930 card scans courtesy of Martin Braem
Below: Italcable cablegram with birthday greetings for Charles Carroll, addressed to him at Hotel Baglione Fze (Firenze/Florence) on the occasion of his 22nd birthday in 1938 Scans courtesy of site visitor Jon Carroll

All of these cables were kept working until circuits became available in the then new co-axial telephone cables that were being laid. Circuits in SAT 1 were allocated to Italcable because it was laid over part of the its South American cable route.

Italcable was one of six partners responsible for the installation of TAT 5, and a further thirty authorities leased circuits in this cable.

MAT 1 was again a joint venture, this time with six others. This cable ran from Estepona, Spain, to Palo, Italy, and carried 640 circuits. The 990 nm of cable and 93 repeaters were manufactured by Standard Telephone & Cables Ltd. and laid by CS John W. Mackay.

CS CITTA DI MILANO (2)

Built 1905 by F. Schichau & Co., Danzig .

Length 3042 ft. Breadth 41.7 ft. Depth 25.5 ft. Gross tonnage 2691.

Built for Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke as CS Grossherzog von Oldenburg. Handed over to the Italians at the end of World War I as war reparations and renamed CS Citta di Milano. Succeeded in avoiding being taken over by the Germans in WW 2 when Italy surrendered. Scuttled at Savona on 18 September 1943.

Used as the base supply ship at Kings Bay, Spitzbergen, for Umberto Nobile’s Arctic expedition with the airship ITALIA.

Seven-minute film of CS Citta di Milano laying the 1929 Palermo - Anzio - Cagliari Cable:

See also Donard de Cogan’s story of the founding and development of Italcable.

Copyright © 2010 FTL Design

Last revised: 20 November, 2022

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