It was also the main supplier of communication in the British South Atlantic, including Saint Helena and the Falkland Islands.

Cable and Wireless traces its history back to a number of British telegraph companies founded in the 1860s, and cites Sir John Pender as the founder.

The Eastern Telegraph group profited enormously from the diversion of business to India and East Asia, away from the German-owned overland routes and from the general use of telegrams in preference to letters, which were delayed by lack of civilian shipping.

Eastern Telegraph, the British Royal Navy, and the General Post Office collaborated on cutting all cable links between Germany and North America.

Electra House, the company's head office and central cable station, was damaged by German bombing in 1941.

[5] Following the Labour Party's victory in the 1945 general election, the government announced its intention to nationalise Cable and Wireless, which was carried out in 1947.

[9] In 1979, the Conservative Party government led by Margaret Thatcher began privatising the nationalised industries, and Cable and Wireless was an early candidate because of its history as a private company.

[10] In February 1982, the government granted a licence for a UK telecommunications network, Mercury Communications Ltd, as a rival to British Telecom.

[11][12] Seeing an opportunity to enter the growing US telecom market afforded by new, optical fiber technology (The US Communications Act of 1934 prohibited ownership of radio facilities by foreign owned companies), Cable & Wireless acquired 9xDS3s from MCI along the Amtrak right of way and began selling transmission services.

[14] Later that year, Cable & Wireless bought 49% of the Panamanian state-run INTEL (Instituto Nacional de TELecomunicaciones, National Telecommunications Institute) for US$652 million: it is now the largest communications carrier in that country.

[21] [22] This in-part lead to an aggressive strategy where, during 1999 and 2000, Cable and Wireless purchased 12 ISPs and other companies across mainland Europe (Austria, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland) and Sweden and Ireland to create, with its UK business, Cable and Wireless Europe.

[32] Cable & Wireless cancelled its American depositary receipts programme in December 2005, voluntarily delisting from the New York Stock Exchange.