Roads and Crossroads of Internet History

Information Age Milestones
1866:" In the beginning was the Cable..."

The Atlantic cable of 1858 was established to carry instantaneous communications across the ocean for the first time. Although the laying of this first cable was seen as a landmark event in society, it was a technical failure. It only remained in service a few days.
Subsequent cables laid in 1866 were completely successful and compare to events like the moon landing of a century later... the cable ... remained in use for almost 100 years. Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

A brief look from 1997:
Annual percentage growth rate of data traffic on undersea telephone cables: 90

Number of miles of undersea telephone cables: 186,000