The advent of submarine cables came with the Brett brothers, who were instrumental in laying a submarine communication cable across the Straits of Dover in 1851. This established a breakthrough in the conquering of the sea in terms of telecommunication.

Ever since this breakthrough, the world’s submarine cable network started its gradual development with England at the center. In 1871, Denmark’s Great Northern Telegraph Company completed the laying of 2 cable lines to Japan; one was from Shanghai and the other from Vladivostok.

In 1872 a submarine cable was laid across the Kanmon Straits in Japan, linking Nagasaki with Tokyo. This was the first submarine cable laid by the Japanese Government and this year marks the 136th anniversary.

During these 136 years Japan’s submarine cable network has developed and communication by submarine cables has remained important especially in today’s age of IT reform.

Telecommunication technology has undergone continued, fast-evolving progress. We now represent an advanced information society, with Internet in the core. Submarine communication cables are playing an important role worldwide as a telecommunication infrastructure capable of stable high-speed and high capacity telecommunication.

<Note> The above is a rewritten version of an article in Progress in the Hundred Years of Submarine Cables, by the Submarine Cable Installation Department,