Commonwealth Pacific Cable System

COMPAC, the Commonwealth Pacific Cable System, was a undersea telephone cable system uniting Canada with New Zealand and Australia. It was inaugerated in 1963. Direct distance dialing was initiated in Canada in 1958, beginning with customers in Toronto and during that same year the Trans-Canada Microwave system went into service.. The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable, jointly owned by the Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation, British Post Office and AT&T, was brought into service in 1956, paving the way for telephone calls from Canada to Britain and Europe. An improved cable, CANTAT was installed in 1961.