Fibre optic cable takes a long and arduous route

This week back in 1866, a gentleman named Cyrus Field was nervously biting his nails, awaiting word on his latest investment.

The news he was waiting for — that his investment in the first the trans-Atlantic cable had finally been put into operation — would change the telecommunications landscape forever.

Just over 144 years ago, telegraphic communication was still in its infancy.

In 1844, Samuel FB Morse made his first historic transmission between Washington DC and Baltimore — heralding the advent of telephone communications.

Mr Field’s investment was as significant as it linked two continents together, allowing for trans-continental communications.

The idea of a trans-Atlantic cable had been proposed by many when it seemed technologically feasible, but Cyrus Field is credited with pushing the idea to completion.

A wealthy New York merchant, Mr Field had to battle angry seas, flighty investors and sceptical lenders to achieve his dream.

Eventually, both the British and American governments agreed to supply additional funding for the project, and in 1857 success was nearly at hand, but then, a cable being laid by the USS Niagara snapped in heavy seas.

Hundreds of miles of cable was lost, and that — coupled with a bank collapse in the United States — caused the project to be shelved again.

The Civil War did not help matters much, erupting just when favourable negotiations were concluding.

The outbreak of the war soured relations between the United States and Great Britain when London openly sympathised with the Confederacy.

By 1866, however, the war was over, and a new ship — the 693-foot-long Great Eastern — was ready to finally lay the cable, laying the final piece in July 27 of that year.

Much of the same drama has played out in the seas off the shores of Kenya in the last year, as the region moves to complete vital international fibre optic links to connect the seaboard to the rest of the world for the first time.

The journey to build a submarine cable network along Africa’s east coast, which began when the East Africa Submarine System (EASSy) was first introduced in November 2002, has been long and arduous and marked by controversy among a myriad of stakeholders, including governments, investors, the New Partnerships for African Development (NEPAD), operators, and regulators.

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