Tech History Made on January 7, 1927

On this day in 1927 the first transatlantic phone call was made. While many homes had telephones, communication between the US and Europe was made by telegraph. AT&T teamed up with the British government to make the first phone call from the US to England. The first call was made between AT&T's president, Walter Sherman Gifford (seated in the photo) in his office in New York, and the secretary of the British Post Office, Sir George Evelyn Pemberton Murray. These early transatlantic phone calls were completed by converting the telephone signal to radio waves, sending the signal across the ocean, then converting the signal back to telephone on the other shore. 31 calls were made that day at a cost of $25 dollars a minute, all of which had such poor sound quality that the two parties could barely understand each other. Almost makes your cell phone bill seem reasonable, doesn't it?