In that same year, telephone engineers also made history by establishing
experimental radio-telephone connections across the Atlantic between
Arlington, Va., near Washington. D. C., to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, as
well as to the Hawaiian Islands and Panama.
Although World War I delayed the development of overseas service, years
of further experimenting and perfecting led, in 1927, to the opening of
regular overseas telephone service between the United States and
England. Since then service has been extended to more than 100 countries
and territories overseas, and it is possible now to reach some 96% of
the world’s telephones from any telephone in the United States. Today,
overseas conversations take place at the rate of over 1,000,000 a year.
Overseas centers in New York, Oakland and Miami furnish the overseas
radiotelephone service, handling calls in much the same way as other
long distance calls.
[Illustration: _A Bell Laboratories and a Long Lines engineer check
the quality of a full-color picture at a special monitoring position
in one of the Bell System television network control centers._]
Now, to handle more calls and for greater dependability in telephoning
between this continent and Great Britain, the first transatlantic cable
is being built. Another cable is being built to Alaska, which will be
able to carry 36 conversations at a time, and will be immune to
atmospheric disturbances that sometimes affect radiotelephone circuits.
There is also a new method of radio transmission, called
“over-the-horizon,” soon to be introduced between Florida and Cuba. This
will provide needed additional telephone channels and will also open up
the possibility of television service over the route.