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Australia’s first telegraph line, financed by the Victorian Government, was installed between Melbourne and Williamstown in 1853 and 1854 (11 miles). The first message transmitted to Melbourne brought news of the Eureka Stockade.
In 1859, Australia’s first connected Tasmania with the mainland across Bass Straight between Otway, Victoria and Georgetown, Tasmania (170 miles). The first fault occurred only 3 weeks after the cable was commissioned and was finally abandoned in 1861. This cable service was replaced in 1869. The first land-based cable was installed between Port Darwin and Adelaide (1971 miles) to which meant that Adelaide was now connected to London (12,296 miles). Australia was now linked to the rest of world for the first time in 1872. The third cable to be laid in Australia was in 1888, connecting Broome, Western Australia to Banjowangie (Java, Indonesia). New Zealand was joined to the continent by a cable laid in 1876 (1191 miles). In 1935, the first “Telephone Cable” was laid across Bass Straight.
Introduced in the 1880s, Coaxial Cable is most known as the cable that connects television sets to antennas. During the 1980s and early 1990s, networks typically used two types of cable. Thinnet (10BASE2) or Thicknet (10BASE5).
Twisted pair emerged during the 1990s as the leading cabling standard for Ethernet, starting with 10 Mbps (10BASE-T, also known as Category 3 or Cat3), later followed by improved versions for 100 Mbps (100BASE-TX, Cat5, and Cat5e) and successively higher speeds up to 10 Gbps (10GBASE-T) alongside Category 6 or Cat6. These emerging fast ethernet cables arrived in industry as twisted pair cables and are defined as either U.T.P. (Unshielded Twisted Pair), or, S.T.P. (Shielded Twisted Pair).
For over 40 years, Electra Cables has been manufacturing cables that are warranted under AS/NZS Standards and are rigorously independently tested for ultimate performance. 100% of Electra’s Data and Communication Cables are 100% Greenstar Certified, with Greenstar Certification being Australia’s only rating system for environmental practices within the building and construction sector.
Electra Cables is one of the largest, if not the largest, stockist of cable in Australiasia.
