TAT-8 was the 8th transatlantic communications cable and first transatlantic fiber-optic cable, carrying 280 Mbit/s (40,000 telephone circuits) between the United States, United Kingdom and France.[1][2] It was constructed in 1988 by a consortium of companies led by AT&T Corporation, France Télécom, and British Telecom. AT&T Bell Laboratories developed the technologies used in the cable.[2] The system was made possible by opto-electric-opto regenerators acting as repeaters with advantages over the electrical repeaters of former cables. They were less costly and could be at greater spacing with less need for associated hardware and software.[3] It was able to serve the three countries with a single transatlantic crossing with the use of an innovative branching unit located underwater on the continental shelf off the coast of Great Britain. The cable lands in Tuckerton, New Jersey, USA, Widemouth Bay, England, UK, and Penmarch, France.
The system was built at an initial cost of US$335 million[4] in 1988 and was retired from service in 2002.[5] Capacity was reached in eighteen months despite optimistic predictions that the capacity would not be filled for a decade and some that it would never be filled and no other cables would be needed.[3]