The History of Coaxial Cable

The type of coaxial cable we are most aware of is the wire that connects our televisions to our cable boxes. It then, in turn, connects our cable boxes to the wall outlet to receive TV signals. Coax has been around a lot longer than most people think; in this article, we explore coaxial early history.

1880 – English mathematician Oliver Heaviside studied the so-called skin effect in telegraph transmission lines. He concluded that wrapping an insular casing around a transmission line both increases the clarity of the signal and improves the durability of the cable. He patented the first coaxial cable in England later that year.

1884 – A scant four years later, electrical engineering company Siemens & Halske register a similar patent to Heaviside’s in Germany. This company was widely known in Europe at the time for developing one of the earliest known electrical generators almost two decades before.

The Royal Intuition in London exhibits waveguide transmissions as demonstrated by Oliver Lodge. This technology not only comprises the principal of transmitting information over coaxial wires, but it also lays the groundwork for other types of communications, including radio, radar and satellites.

1894 – The U.S. Patent office awards renowned inventor Nikola Tesla with the first electrical conductor patent. These three technologies combined were the key components necessary to construct the coaxial cables we use today.

1931 – Lloyd Espenschied and Herman Affel patent the first recognizable coaxial cable on behalf of AT&T’s Bell Telephone Laboratories. This version of coax was the first to feature two transmission wires sharing the same axis, allowing for wider frequency range.

1936 – The Games of the XI Olympiad in Berlin became the first major event to transmit images via coaxial cable. The closed-circuit transmission ran from the games in Berlin to Leipzig 150 miles away. This event marks the first time large-scale television images were successfully transmitted over an appreciable distance.

Australia lays the world’s premier submarine coaxial cable. The 186-mile wire connected the island of Tasmania to the Australian mainland.

The United Kingdom General Post Office installs a coaxial telephone wire connecting the cities of London and Birmingham. This 130-mile telephone system was the first of its kind in the United Kingdom and provided 40 separate telephone channels.

1941 – A 220-mile long coaxial cable connects the American cities of Minneapolis, Minnesota and Stevens Point, Wisconsin. This marks the first commercial use of coaxial cable in the United States. The cable was capable of providing a single television channel or 480 telephone lines.

1956 – Transatlantic No. 1 (TAT-1), the first underwater transatlantic telephone cable system, connects the American and European continents. The joint venture between the UK General Post Office and AT&T had, at its core, a coaxial cable that was more than 1,500 nautical miles long. TAT-1 linked the cities of Oban, Scotland and Clarenville, Newfoundland. The system internally carried 36 phone calls and was in service until 1978.

Large-scale coaxial cables tests were an unmitigated success, both scientifically and commercially. The technology had proved itself both dependable and durable over long distances. As patents expired and other companies ventured into the coaxial market, the cables became refined and miniaturized.

Eventually, the most common coax cable became what we now use to connect our televisions and cable modems. These wires are the great-great-grandchildren of the technology developed in the 1880s. However, they still occupy an integral part in our technology and our lives.

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