When you call across the sea
In that same year, telephone engineers also made history by establishing experimental radio-telephone connections across the Atlantic between Arlington, Va., near Washington. D. C., to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, as well as to the Hawaiian Islands and Panama.
Although World War I delayed the development of overseas service, years of further experimenting and perfecting led, in 1927, to the opening of regular overseas telephone service between the United States and England. Since then service has been extended to more than 100 countries and territories overseas, and it is possible now to reach some 96% of the world’s telephones from any telephone in the United States. Today, overseas conversations take place at the rate of over 1,000,000 a year. Overseas centers in New York, Oakland and Miami furnish the overseas radiotelephone service, handling calls in much the same way as other long distance calls.
A Bell Laboratories and a Long Lines engineer check the quality of a full-color picture at a special monitoring position in one of the Bell System television network control centers.
Now, to handle more calls and for greater dependability in telephoning between this continent and Great Britain, the first transatlantic cable is being built. Another cable is being built to Alaska, which will be able to carry 36 conversations at a time, and will be immune to atmospheric disturbances that sometimes affect radiotelephone circuits. There is also a new method of radio transmission, called “over-the-horizon,” soon to be introduced between Florida and Cuba. This will provide needed additional telephone channels and will also open up the possibility of television service over the route.