Cable & Wireless Communications Ltd operating as C&W Communications is a telecommunications company which has operations in the Caribbean and Central America. It is owned by Liberty Latin America and is headquartered in London.
It was formed when Cable & Wireless plc demerged in 2010 to form two companies (the other being Cable & Wireless Worldwide plc).
In November 2015, Liberty Global announced it would purchase Cable & Wireless Communications. The company was officially acquired by Liberty Global on May 16, 2016.
Following the split of Liberty Latin America from Liberty Global in 2018, Cable & Wireless became owned by Liberty Latin America based in Boulder, Colorado.
The company operates under a number of brands, including C&W Business, C&W Networks, Cable & Wireless Panama, and BTC Bahamas. After Cable & Wireless Communications purchased Columbus Communications in 2015, it replaced its LIME brand with Columbus' Communications
History
British and transatlantic cables and Eastern Telegraph Company (1852–1901) The origins of Cable and Wireless Communications begin in 1852 when John Pender, a Manchester cotton merchant, joined other businessmen as director of the English and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company. This company ran a specific point to point telegraph cable service between London and Dublin, but Pender soon began founding numerous other telegraphic cable companies to run similar point to point, national and international telegraph services. Over time, Pender amalgamated these into the single company that would form the basis for Cable and Wireless Communications.
Because of the early development of point to point telegraph services, Cable and Wireless's origins embrace over 50 early telegraph, radio and telecommunications companies, many of them founded by Pender.
Pender was a financier of the Great Eastern Ship which laid the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866, beginning a new era of international telegraph communications.
In 1869, Pender founded the Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta Cable Company and the British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company, which connected the Anglo-Mediterranean cable (linking Malta to Alexandria using a cable manufactured by one of Pender's companies) to Britain and India, respectively. The London to Bombay telegraph line was completed in 1870. The London to Bombay cable was the first to land at Porthcurno in Cornwall, a location which became the company's global hub and is now home to its archive and a telegraph museum.
In 1872 the three companies were merged with the Marseilles, Algiers and Malta Telegraph Company to form the Eastern Telegraph Company, with Pender as chairman.
The Eastern Telegraph Company steadily took over a number of companies founded to connect the West Indies and South America, leading to a name change to The Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies.
Rise of wireless and transition to C&W Ltd (1901–1945) From 1900 the near-monopoly on international communications enjoyed by the cable companies came under threat from the development of wireless radio technology. Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company gradually developed a chain of ships using short-wave radio communications which could commercially compete with undersea cables. In 1924 Marconi succeeded in telephoning Australia using short wave radio and in the same year was given a contract by the British Post Office to set up circuits with Canada, Australia, South Africa and India (called the Post Office beam wireless service).
The 1928 Imperial Wireless & Cable Conference was convened to establish the best way to manage these two technologies and protect British interests. This led to a decision to merge the communications methods of the British Empire into one operating company, initially known as the Imperial and International Communications Ltd, and changed to Cable and Wireless Limited in 1934. In 1936, Sir Edward Wilshaw was named chairman of the company.
Nationalisation and privatisation era (1945–1999)
Following the Labour Party's victory in the 1945 general election, the British government announced its intention to nationalise Cable and Wireless, which was carried out in 1947. The company continued to own assets and operate telecommunication services outside the UK, but all assets in the UK were integrated with those of the Post Office, which operated the UK's domestic telecommunications monopoly.