Completed in 1989 at a cost of US$600 million and maintained by Cable & Wireless (C&W) and Sprint/Private TransAtlantic Telecommunication Systems, Inc. (PSI, Inc.),[1] it connected Manasquan, New Jersey, United States, with Devonshire, Bermuda, and Ballinspittle, Republic of Ireland, terminating at Brean, England, United Kingdom, for a distance of 7,552 kilometres (4,693 miles; 4,078 nautical miles).
PTAT-1 is notable for breaking the international telecommunication monopoly held by AT&T Corporation and British Telecom (BT) for telecommunications between the US and UK, and setting off the mass production of fiber optic systems that now circle the world.
Competitors to the cable had dropped their prices drastically after they re-emerged from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy with little or no debts to service, something C&W was unable to compete with.
[citation needed][3] This cable provided intelligent repeaters that monitored and reported bit errors when queried by a base station.
Each repeater had a base-station-controlled switch that could direct traffic between two fiber pairs, allowing flexible connections and a backup path if needed.