Hackaday

TAT-8, the world's first transatlantic fiber-optic cable laid in 1988, is being recovered for recycling by Subsea Environmental Services. The cable ran 6,000 km between New Jersey, England, and France, carrying 560 Mbit/s across two fibers. Built by AT&T, France Télécom, and British Telecom for ~$335 million, it was expected to last a decade before reaching capacity but was saturated within 18 months — partly due to the explosive growth of the World Wide Web. Remarkably, the cable still appeared new after four decades on the seabed.

TAT-8 — The First Transatlantic Fiber — Rises Again