Cable ties

Undersea cables transmit information by means of light impulses. The first South Atlantic undersea cable to South Africa, SAT 1, was laid in 1968. It was taken out of service in 1993 and replaced with a fibre-optic cable, SAT 2, which was fully utilised by 2012. SAT 3 is under way and will total 28 800km. Cable is still preferred to satellite communication in many instances as the cable time delay on SAT 3 will be less than 60 milliseconds, whereas satellite transmission’s delay is typically 250 milliseconds