The First Transatlantic Phone Call
On this day · 7 January 1927
In 1927, a voice crossed 3,000 miles of ocean by radio, linking New York and London for the very first time.
On January 7, 1927, the world’s first commercial transatlantic telephone service opened, joining New York and London in conversation across more than 3,000 miles of open ocean. The inaugural “official” call was held between Walter S. Gifford, president of America’s AT&T, and Sir Evelyn P. Murray, head of the British General Post Office.
There was no cable beneath the sea yet, so the voices traveled by radio. A call left the AT&T building at 125 Broadway, ran by wire to a transmitter at Rocky Point, Long Island, leapt the Atlantic as radio waves to a receiving station at Rugby, England, then continued by wire into London. The reply looped back through Cupar, Scotland, and Houlton, Maine.
“How’s the weather over in London?” — small talk never carried such weight.
A three-minute call cost a small fortune, but the link shrank the Atlantic from days of mail to mere seconds of speech. It was the fragile first thread of the global voice network we now take for granted.
Sources & references
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