trading name jt industry telecommunications founded 1888 headquarters saint helier jersey and st peter port guernsey key people graeme millar ceo john stares non executive chairman products fixedline telephony mobile telephony internet access services data center services owner states of jersey subsidiaries jersey telecom limited wave telecom limited wave data services limited jersey telecom uk limited website www.jtglobal.com jt group limited doing business as jt is the parent company of several subsidiaries including jersey telecom limited and wave telecom limited . jersey telecom is the former monopoly operator in the bailiwick of jersey . jt provides telecommunications internet access and other services mostly within the channel islands . 1 contents 1 history 1.1 19th century to the occupation 1.2 1950s to 1980s 1.3 1980s to today 2 operations 2.1 mobile networks 2.2 wave telecom 2.3 jt wholesale 2.4 internet connectivity 2.4.1 jt fibre 2.5 jt lab 3 competition 4 jersey mobile number portability 5 references 6 external links history edit the arms on the minden place exchange dated 1933 19th century to the occupation edit the first telephone exchange was opened in jersey in 1888 by the western counties and south wales telephone company 2 but the service was suspended in 1891 . a telephone number first featured in a jersey times and british press advert h elliot s springfield nursery & 34 king street telephone no 18 on 18 august 1888 . the exchange which was installed on the first floor of 66 bath street on the corner of minden place was taken over in 1895 when the company was incorporated into the national telephone company ntc and is very close to the present day main exchange building in saint helier . this exchange was moved to 2 new street in 1901 . the jersey exchange network was taken over in 1912 by the british general post office gpo when the ntc licence expired and then comprised some 14 magneto exchanges 3 and 1 313 subscribers . the gpo offered the system to the states of jersey but the offer was declined . the gpo managed the system until it was again offered to and then bought by the states of jersey in 1923 for 32 000 approximately 1.3 million today and named the states telephone department . on takeover there were still 14 exchanges with a total of 1 598 subscribers . the post office awarded the states a thirty year licence with a royalty of 10 % of revenue per annum . the first engineer manager was alfred rosling bennett miee a renowned telephone engineer who had previously assisted the states of guernsey and kingston upon hull corporation set up their telephone systems . off island communications continued to be operated by the gpo . the st helier magneto exchange based at new street st helier was replaced in 1926 by a new cb1 type exchange installed in a new building in minden place in 1926 and renamed central exchange . this exchange also subsumed samar s exchange at the same time . st mary s exchange was merged with st ouen s exchange in 1927 . exchanges at five oaks trinity gorey st aubin and millbrook were converted from magneto to cb10 during 1938 some moving to new buildings at the same time . the only communications off island were via telegraph cables from 1858 when the channel island telegraph company opened the first telegraph cable to the isle of portland via guernsey and alderney up until 1931 . in 1931 the gpo converted the former german borkum azores telegraph cable that had been cut and diverted to serve jersey via guernsey and dartmouth in 1914 for military signals to a single telephone voice channel connected via guernsey and exeter to london . this followed the decision to close the military telegraph circuit from the uk to rennes via st malo in brittany . this cable was increased in capacity through the use of multiplex equipment to two circuits by 1933 then a third was added in 1935 . by 1936 five circuits were available between the islands and six circuits from guernsey to the uk three being provided by high frequency wireless circuits at the time the longest distance circuits in use anywhere . a new submarine cable from dartmouth to jersey via guernsey was laid by the gpo in the summer of 1939 this provided 12 multiplexed channels which were shared with guernsey in addition to the wireless circuits . the provision of this new cable necessitated the construction of a separate repeater station at trinity gardens st helier to accommodate the multiplex equipment . in 1940 the war office decided to install a second cable to serve the british expeditionary force in france in case the cables in the north english channel were cut . a further cable between fliquet and pirou normandy was installed providing a 1 9 multiplexed circuits with equipment provided by siemens brothers . although the jersey uk section was put into service briefly the german invasion prevented the french circuits from being used beyond basic testing . in 1940 during the german occupation of the channel islands all communication with the outside world was stopped except under licence from the occupation forces . communications to france were restored by the germans after the cables were severed by the departing british forces and gpo engineers . the german army took over as many as 2 000 of the lines and cables in the network but the civilian exchanges were allowed to continue in operation . 1950s to 1980s edit after the war trunk services were rapidly restored and telegraph services were connected in days using military wireless equipment . the cables were quickly picked up and the pre war circuits put back into service . the gpo upgraded the cable capacity in 1952 and opened in the spring of 1953 a new trunk manual board in an extension over the telephone department offices . the gpo installed new cables to cater for increased demand in 1958 tucton bridge bournemouth to gr ve d azette and in 1968 tucton bridge to gr ve d azette . a further analogue multiplex repeated submarine cable from bournemouth to gr ve d azette was added jointly by the telecommunications board and recently branded british telecom in 1982 after the takeover of the trunk system by the states of jersey in 1973 . the telephone services experienced a post war boom for demand and it quickly became apparent that the existing exchange network was not sufficient . it was decided to rationalize the network and reduce the number of switches . strangely it was decided to continue with manual switchboards . the first exchanges to be converted were st ouen and st peter which were amalgamated to form western exchange . the equipment at this exchange was supplied by ericsson s of beeston later plessey and was an export cancellation having originally been destined for ethiopia . northern exchange which absorbed sion trinity st john and st lawrence exchanges was opened in 1951 southern exchange which replaced st aubin s exchange la moye was absorbed into st aubin s exchange in 1946 in 1952 and eastern exchange absorbing five oaks and gorey la rocque exchange having been absorbed into gorey in april 1946 in 1955 . a relief exchange for central was opened directly opposite in lyric hall cattle street in 1953 . all these exchanges were of the cb10 type supplied by gec telecommunications of coventry . later on the opening of central automatic exchange the ern suffix was removed because of the potential for confusion over poor transmission lines . jersey s first automatic strowger exchange a gec se50 type otherwise the gpo 4000 type was finally brought into operation on 1 november 1959 with a capacity for 9 000 lines . the new automatic exchange absorbed millbrook exchange on 30 march 1960 . automated information services were introduced in 1960 providing subscribers with mail boat arrival data and a daily diary service a speaking clock service was introduced in 1964 using a system provided by ericsson of beeston . subscriber trunk dialling std was introduced in jersey in 1966 which meant that most uk calls could now be dialled direct instead of having to go through an operator . the same year south exchange was converted to automatic working with a further gec supplied strowger switch fitted with gec proprietary dust proofing an improvement later abandoned as unsuccessful . between 1968 and 1969 public telephone kiosks 4 were converted to the gpo pay on answer poa phone box type to enable std . on 1 january 1973 the states of jersey took over the trunk exchange and cable network from the post office telephones and assumed a monopoly for the supply of telecommunications services on the island under the telecommunications jersey law 1972 . this followed on from the takeover of postal services in 1969 after the harold wilson government s restructuring of the gpo . the maintenance of the postal telegraph services was taken over by the newly formed states telecommunications board . automatic exchanges were also commissioned at the east and north of the island in 1975 but of the itt italian subsidiary face standard pentaconta crossbar switch type . this new equipment could accept tone dialling and allowed the introduction of telephones with keypads instead of a dial . two further philips prx205 electronic exchanges were introduced in 1975 in central as a relief exchange to the strowger unit and 1976 at west due to a shortage of lines on the ericsson of beeston cb switchboard . 1976 also saw the introduction of international subscriber dialling isd enabling local subscribers to dial direct to over 250 million telephones in 26 countries . however isd was not available from coin boxes until july 1982 when poa boxes were replaced with post office ct22b type electronic payphones . in 1979 the board introduced a motorola single channel radio paging system which was upgraded to a two channel system . it is now operated by the jersey airport department of electronics . 1980s to today edit the 80s were growth years for the telecommunications board despite the recession which hit the united kingdom . many new services were introduced during this time the most significant of which was the introduction of system x exchanges island wide . this computer controlled system had been developed for british telecom and had the obvious advantage of allowing jersey to be completely compatible with the uk network . 1983 saw the 60 000th telephone connected in jersey which showed a 20 000 increase in just 7 years . all exchanges were replaced with system x or system x remote concentrators by 1994 . in 1984 the states telecommunications board relaxed its monopoly and began to allow some privately purchased equipment to be connected to the network subject to babt type approval to ensure that the service was not put at any risk . this was further relaxed in 1996 to include pabx and public pay phones . during the same period extensive developments were made to the communication links out of the island . microwave links were put in place between jersey and both the uk iow and france to ensure service in the unlikely event of a repeat of a breakdown of all the main cable communication links which occurred during 1977 and 1979 . 1989 saw the introduction of the first fibre optic cable between guernsey and england with the second fibre optic cable running from jersey to goonhilly in the uk put in place in 1994 . this cable was at one time the longest unrepeated optical fibre sea cable in the world . both cables can carry more than 32 000 simultaneous calls . jt operates an sdh ring service over these two cables . in 2000 the jersey electricity company installed a second submarine electricity supply cable to surville in