The transatlantic cable provided the first nearly instantaneous communication between North America and Europe.
A transatlantic telegraph cable is an undersea cable running under the Atlantic Ocean implementedd for telegraph communications. The first communications took place in August 16, 1858, reducing the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days (the time it took to deliver a message by ship) to a matter of minutes. Transatlantic telegraph cables have been replaced by transatlantic telecommunications cables.