Flow Jamaica Ltd has recently completed laying underwater telecommunications cables linking Jamaica to its fibre-optic cable running between Florida and Colombia. There was no excitement, and only a little media mention.

That was not the case in 1870 when Jamaica was first connected to the world by underwater cable for the transmission of telegraph messages. The Daily Gleaner of Tuesday, September 20, reporting on the celebrations in Kingston, said, "Altogether the scene reminded one of the glorious 1st August, 1838 - an ever-memorable day in the annals of Jamaica."

The cable was laid by the West India and Panama Telegraph Company which had been formed with the specific intention of linking the Caribbean islands to Cuba and Colón [Panama] and to the rest of the world through these two portals. The Cuba-Jamaica cable landed at Port Morant and was connected to Kingston by a landline erected under the supervision of 'distinguished engineer' James Abrams.

The work was followed with much anticipation and excitement and was extensively covered in the press. Soon after, the path of the landline between Kingston and Port Morant was surveyed and pegged out, the Falmouth Post joyfully announced, "We expect soon to be in telegraphic communication with Great Britain, via Cuba, Key West, the American continent, and thence across the Atlantic, by the wires that connect that continent with Europe."

The submarine cable to Jamaica was laid by the cable ship Dacia. The ship had been bought by Charles Bright, the founder of several telegraph companies, including the West India and Panama Telegraph Company, and modified for cable laying. Bright had the ship cut in half and lengthened by 40 feet and then strengthened with a broad iron belt running from stem to stern. The cable paying-out and picking-up gear was given particular attention as experience had shown that the strain when laying the heavy telegraph cables in deep seas could easily reach 100 tons.

Heavier cables

The Dacia continued to lay cables all over the world for many years and was still in use during the First World War. It was sunk by a German torpedo on December 3, 1916, while on cable duties near the island of Madeira.

Three vessels, the Dacia, Minia and the Suffolk, arrived off the eastern end of Jamaica at Holland Bay in the early hours of the morning on September 15, 1870. The cable was laid from the Dacia to a distance of two miles from the shore. A heavier cable was drawn in to the landing place by the Suffolk, assisted by boats and men from another vessel, the HMS Vestal. The work was finished the same evening. Two Spanish boats, the corvette Condor and the gunboat Ardid, accompanied the expedition, although we are not sure of the significance of their presence.

The final cable splice having being made, the fleet proceeded to Kingston where Sir Charles Bright opened the new telegraph office. The arrival of the expedition in Kingston led to great celebrations. The vessels anchored at Port Royal ran up their flags and the whole town of Port Royal was decked out in bunting. A large number of people thronged the point and there was much cheering as the ships passed around the tip of the Palisadoes peninsula.

The scenes of jubilant celebration were repeated as the convoy arrived at Kingston with the playing of the British and Spanish national anthems and the discharge of cannon.

By the next morning after the cable had been completed, September 16, 1870, messages were passing through the cable.

In 1938, the West India and Panama Telegraph Company became Cable and Wireless (West Indies) Ltd. The cable link between Kingston and Santiago de Cuba worked continuously for over a century and was only retired in 1975.

When we got connected in 1870, the first truly successful transatlantic cable had only been in operation for four years. At the end of the first decade of the 20th century, we joined the rest of the world in adopting the new wireless telegraph technology based on radio-wave signals. A wireless tower erected in the mountains at Stony Hill gave the road running by it the name Wireless Station Road.

Despite wireless telegraphic transmission and, later, telephone transmission, the underwater cables continued to be important. Nearly 100 years after our first cable connection, a story carried by The Daily Gleaner on October 4, 1963, "Commonwealth cable nears completion: Linking Jamaica with the world" focused mainly on the laying of cables across the Pacific Ocean but noted that Jamaicans were eagerly anticipating the completion of the Pacific cable-laying project by the world's fastest cable-laying ship, the Mercury, owned by Cable and Wireless Ltd.

Jamaica to Florida cable

The Jamaica to Florida cable jointly owned by Cable and Wireless and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), the report continued, would be connected to the new Commonwealth Pacific Cable linking Jamaica to Australia and New Zealand and these countries to Canada and Britain for telephone calls which could be made "with as little trouble as making a local call". The interconnecting cables would also transmit telegraph messages.

The Florida-Jamaica C&W-AT&T cable was laid by the chartered British Post Office cable ship Alert starting at Florida City on the night of February 1, 1963, and ending at Seven-Mile Point, Bull Bay, on February 9, covering a distance of 875 miles in nine days. There were 45 repeaters in the 875-mile-long cable to boost electrical signals which could withstand high underwater pressure. These repeaters were "a technical triumph" which had made long-distance submarine telephone cables feasible only since 1956.

The terminal station at Seven-Mile Point, the news report said, "houses a vast quantity of intricate equipment for the cable and also one end of the ultra high-frequency (microwave) radio system for Jamaica to and from Kingston". A popular beach at Bull Bay is still known as Cable Hut Beach. The cable greatly expanded telephone and telegraph channels.

"The facilities made possible by the cable are as good as those available anywhere in the world, and are of immense value to Jamaica's economy and social organisation," the news story concluded.

We have gone from copper cables to fibre-optic cables like the one that Flow has just laid. The cable-telegraph service, overtaken by modern technology, is no more, having been closed in 2004. But those out-of-sight submarine cables keep us connected to the world for modern telecommunications.

Martin Henry is a communications consultant and columnist with The Sunday Gleaner. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.