Stone to Silicon

Communication · 1988

TAT-8 fiber cable

The first transatlantic fiber-optic cable carries 40,000 calls at once.

TAT-8, in service from December 1988, carried about 280 Mbit/s over fiber pairs between the US, Britain and France. It began the submarine fiber network that now carries almost all intercontinental internet traffic.

See it in the living treeWikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people Latest: 20.1 per 100 people (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Share of people online Latest: 73.6 % (2025) Source: Our World in Data