TAT-8

TAT-8 was the 8th transatlantic telephone cable, initially carrying 40,000 telephone circuits (simultaneous calls) between USA, England and France. It was constructed in 1988 by a consortium of companies led by AT&T, France Telecom, and British Telecom. It was able to serve the three countries with a single trans-Atlantic crossing with the use of an innovative branching unit located underwater on the contiental shelf off of the coast of Great Britain. The cable lands in Tuckerton, NJ, USA, Widemouth, England, and Penmarch, France.

The system was built at a cost of US$335M (1988 dollars) and retired from service in 2002.

This was the first transatlantic cable to use optical fibers, a revolution in telecommunications. The system contained two working pairs of optical fibers. (A third was reserved as a spare.) The signal on each optical fiber was modulated at 295.6 Mb/s (carrying 20 Mb/s traffic) and fully regenerated in equipment placed in pressure housings separated by about 40 km of cable.