Marine Telecommunications

Marine telecommunications evolved from the development of the telegraph. The earliest telegraph was an optical one invented by a Frenchman, Claude Chappe, involving the use of semaphore relays. Chappe built an operational system for the French authorities in 1793.Before the 1840s, several experimental electric telegraphs were built in Europe, notably Great Britain as well as in North America. In 1844, Samuel Morse in America while William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in Britain successfully stage public demonstrations of the electric telegraphs. The early expansion of the electric telegraph was made possible by the railway network. In 1850, the first submarine cable for telegraphy was installed by Great Britain across the English Channel to France. Since then, many countries had followed suit including the first transatlantic installation. These initial undertakings ended in failure. Submarine cables installed in the late 1850s onwards made telegraph a thriving commercial operation worldwide. Thus, the rapid growth of the telegraph had internationalised telecommunications.

The first submarine cable for telegraphy was installed by Great Britain in 1850 across the English Channel to France. However, submarine cables installed before the 1859s had met failure due to various reasons such as poor quality of insulation to destruction by fishing boats. Scientific advances and technological development have since then improved the materials used in submarine cables as well as the information transmission capacity and quality. Today, submarine cables are the leading means of communication across the oceans and consist of copper wires and fibre optic as transmission media.

 

 

 

 

 

Before 1984, most ships could not communicate with each other although they could receive a distress alert. At that time, the range of transmission on MF was only 150 miles so that ships beyond this distance from the nearest coastal station, it is essentially a ship-to-ship distress system. The advent of satellite communication led the IMO to commence a study of maritime satellite communication with assistance from the International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR) of ITU in 1972. In 1976, IMO adopted the Convention on the Establishment of the International Maritime Satellite Organization (INMARSAT). In 1979, the Convention entered into force and INMARSAT became operational.