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The first transatlantic submarine cable system, TAT-1, went into service on 25 September 1956. From then on, there have been the TAT series of transatlantic submarine cable systems, until the latest one TAT-14.
The TAT-8 cable system is the first transatlantic fiber-optic submarine cable, spanning approximately 6000 kilometers, connecting Tuckerton, New Jersey in the United States, Widemouth Bay, England, and Penmarch, France. TAT-8 was built by a consortium led by AT&T, British Telecom and France Telecom at a cost about US$335 million, entered service on December 14, 1988 and retired from service in 2002. The TAT-8 cable system contained two working fiber pairs and one fiber pair reserved as a spare. The signal on each optical fiber was modulated at 295.6 Mbit/s. Its bandwidth was fully utilised within roughly 18 months — an early signal that global appetite for digital data was growing faster than infrastructure planners had anticipated. TAT-8 was retired in 2002 after developing a fault deemed uneconomical to repair. Since then, it has rested on the ocean floor over two decades. In early 2026, the retired TAT-8 cable was pulled off the ocean floor for recycling.
Currently, all of the TAT series of submarine cable systems have been out of service, the latest TAT-14 cable system retired on December 15, 2020.
List of transatlantic cables connecting America and Europe.
| System | RFS | Retire |
| Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1) | 1998 | |
| Columbus III | 1999 | |
| Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-2) | 2000 | |
| Yellow /AC-2 | 2000 | |
| TAT-14 | 2001 | 2020 |
| Flag Atlantic 1 (FA-1) | 2001 | |
| GTT Atlantic | 2001 | |
| TGN Atlantic | 2001 | |
| Apollo | 2003 | |
| GTT Express | 2015 | |
| AEC-1 | 2016 | |
| MAREA | 2018 | |
| AEC-2/Havfrue | 2020 | |
| Dunant | 2021 | |
| Grace Hopper | 2022 | |
| Amitié/AEC-3 | 2022 | |
| Anjana | 2024 | |
| Nuvem | 2026 | |
| SOL | 2027 | |
| Fastnet | 2028 |
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