Until 1927 the only way to reach across the Atlantic instantly was by telegraph, in dots and dashes. That changed on January 7, when AT&T and the British General Post Office opened a public telephone service between New York and London. Voices went by wire from Manhattan to a transmitter at Rocky Point on Long Island, then crossed the ocean by radio. After the officials' opening call, ordinary customers could book calls, though the price put it out of reach for most people.
The first official conversation began on the 26th floor of the AT&T building at 125 Broadway in lower Manhattan. Walter S. Gifford, AT&T's president, spoke with Sir Evelyn Murray, Secretary of Britain's General Post Office, over a link more than 3,000 miles long. The call went by landline to a radio transmitter at Rocky Point, Long Island, then crossed the Atlantic on radio waves. Engineers had run a test the day before to make sure it would work.
Once the officials had finished, the service opened to paying customers. The price was steep, about $75 for three minutes, and radio had its weaknesses. Calls could fade or crackle with the weather and with the sun's activity, and anyone with the right equipment could in principle listen in. Service was often sold by the minute to banks, newspapers and governments.
Even so, a spoken sentence could now cross the ocean in an instant rather than days. Radio carried transatlantic calls for almost 30 years, until the first telephone cable under the Atlantic, TAT-1, opened in 1956.
Key people: Walter S. Gifford, Evelyn Murray