Private Trans-Atlantic Telecommunication Systems, (PTAT Systems) was an American

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

s company. The company was created in March 1984 as Tel-Optik, and filed a Cable Landing License application in September 1984 and together with Cable and Wireless of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, built the first privately financed

transatlantic Transatlantic, Trans-Atlantic or TransAtlantic may refer to: Film * Transatlantic Pictures, a film production company from 1948 to 1950 * Transatlantic Enterprises, an American production company in the late 1970s * ''Transatlantic'' (1931 film) ...

fiber optic cable A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable, but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with ...

PTAT-1 PTAT-1 was the first privately financed transatlantic fibre optic telecommunications cable, which was completed in 1989, at a cost of US$400 million. It was maintained by Cable & Wireless (C&W) and Sprint/PSI, and connected Manasquan, New Jer ...

. It was turned on in May 1989 and was sold to

Sprint Corporation Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before it merged with T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. The ...

in August 1989. PTAT-1 consisted of 3 operational fiber pairs and one spare fibre pair. The total bandwidth was 27 DS-3 channels of 45 Mbit/s each - a total of roughly 1.2 Gbit/s. When PTAT-1 was turned on it was 2/3s of the total bandwidth available across the Atlantic at the time. PTAT-1 was turned off when much larger systems made PTAT-1 no longer worth operating. The main spur of PTAT-1 linked New York and London via Manasquan NJ in the US, and Brean in the UK. A single fiber pair was looped down to Bermuda and up to Ireland providing 4 way connectivity. When planning started in the summer of 1983, the longest fiber system in the US was less than a mile long and ran at 1.5 Mbit/s, a T-1. The company was founded on premise that introducing international telecommunication competition would be easier via cable than via satellite, due to the regulatory environment that protected the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization. The relevant regulation for a cable system was the Cable Landing License Act of 1921, which stipulated that the party at the other end of the cable be acceptable to the US. As a result of the competitive pressure that PTAT-1 introduced to the international telecommunications market, by the time the system was turned on, the international telecom monopoly between AT&T and British Telecom was broken, and the cost of international telecommunications plummeted. PTAT-1 set the stage for the explosion of fiber optic systems which now circle the world. The founders of PTAT System, Inc. were Ron Coleman, Brian Hughes, Jim McGillan,& Konnie Schaefer. E. F. Hutton & Co. was the major financial partner in PTAT Systems. Ron Coleman was Chairman and Konnie Schaefer was the President when the Cable Landing License was filed. Ron Coleman was CEO and Chairman when the company was acquired by Sprint in 1989.

References

Telecommunications companies of the United States Transatlantic telecommunications {{US-telecom-company-stub