Digital Transmission over Submarine Cables

The problems of transoceanic transmission of large volumes of information have been raised increasingly over the past few years. Lately, the need for transoceanic digital communications has been of interest. This paper discusses the significance of these trends and examines the technical prospects for handling large volumes of digital traffic using submarine cables. Concentrating on transatlantic traffic, an argument is built up for an all-digital cable by the year 1970. Submarine cable technology is reviewed briefly and several approaches to transoceanic digital transmission are discussed, using known and estimated cable technology. A final approach is described in detail using existing repeater and cable technology for the transmission of multilevel digital data at rates in excess of 1.5 mb/s.