HAW-1 Submarine Telephone Cable in Hanauma Bay June 2021

HAW-1 (Hawaii No. 1) was the first submarine telephone cable laid between

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

and the

mainland United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

. HAW-1 was laid in 1957, and consisted of two cables, (one transmitting in each direction), each carrying 36 channels, with an individual length of 2,625 Nmi (4,862 km) each. The cable originates in

Hanauma Bay Hanauma (; ) is a marine embayment formed within a tuff ring and located along the southeast coast of the Island of Oahu in the Hawaii Kai neighborhood of East Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands. Hanauma is one of the most popular tourist destina ...

Oahu Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...

, Hawaii and lands at

Point Arena, California Point Arena, formerly known as Punta Arena (Spanish for "Sandy Point") is a small coastal city in Mendocino County, California, United States. Point Arena is located west of Hopland, at an elevation of . The population was 460 at the 2020 cens ...

. Manufactured by Submarine Cables Ltd. (2,030 nm) and Simplex Wire & Cable Co. (2,380 nm), the 1957 telephone cable from California to Hawaii was commissioned by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

and the

Hawaiian Telephone Company Hawaiian Telcom, Inc., is the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) or dominant local telephone company, serving the state of Hawaii. In 2005, Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc., was formed by The Carlyle Group, following its purchase of the Hawaiian ...

, and was laid by the HMTS ''Monarch'' and the . Monarch commenced laying the cable from Point Arena (San Francisco) on 11 July 1957, and after laying 1900 miles met in mid-ocean with ''Ocean Layer'', which put down the remaining 665 miles of cable into Hanauma Bay on Oahu. The first message through the cable was sent on 3 August 1957, and the ships then laid the eastbound cable, completing the installation in the Autumn of 1957. The cable used for HAW-1 was of the same type as used for TAT-1, the first telephone cable across the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, which had been laid the previous year, and also for the 1956 USA to Alaska telephone cable. At that time, the repeaters worked in only one direction, therefore two cables were needed for each route. The Hawaii No. 1 cable provided the first direct operator dialing between Hawaii and the mainland and was retired in 1989 after 32 years of service, then being replaced with more advanced

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

cable technology.

External links

1957 HAW-1 Cable
Submarine communications cables in the Pacific Ocean 1957 establishments in California 1957 establishments in Hawaii 1989 disestablishments in California 1989 disestablishments in Hawaii {{telecomm-stub