Our heritage: Felten & Guilleaume Carlswerk AG and the Deutsch-Atlantische Telegraphengesellschaft founded NSW (Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke) in 1899 in Cologne. For over a century now, the company has been a pioneer in the area of submarine cable technology and communications. In 1904, NSW manufactured its first significant (7,993 km) submarine telecommunications cable insulated using gutta-percha. Two NSW cable ships, the "von Podbielski" and the "Stephan von Borkum,” laid the cable to New York by way of the Azores.
In 1931, Siemens acquired a 50% stake in the company. From 1932 to 1935, NSW developed insulating foils based on polystyrene, and plastics extrusion technology. Initially, the plastics extrusion work focused exclusively on insulating cables. As experience grew and application areas were further developed, the POLY-NET® sector was officially founded in 1959. This is where NSW began the commercial manufacture of extruded, knotless plastic netting. Additional packaging solutions followed. NSW continued to expand the POLY-NET® range. NSW has been producing surface protection netting and spacer grids since 1970 in its own purpose-built POLY-NET® factory. Continuous research brought NSW two new areas of activity in 1978: environmental technology, and power transmission and conveying technology.
Of course, the cable sector continued its development and implemented some of the most important submarine telecommunications projects in the world. In 1958 and 1959, NSW delivered the 1,855-kilometer submarine telecommunications cable with a polyethylene sheath for the TAT 2 transatlantic telephone system. More large-scale projects such as the ICECAN telephone line (a 3,224-kilometer connection between Iceland, Greenland and Canada, part of the dedicated line between the White House and the Kremlin) and the TAT 4 transatlantic cable (2,223 kilometers) followed.
The most important breakthrough came in 1989 -- at the dawn of the modern age of submarine telecommunications in the cable industry -- with the development of the first fiber-optic submarine cables. Since then, NSW has become one of the world's leading companies in the area of repeaterless submarine cable technology. Together with Siemens, which acquired the remainder of the company in 1995, NSW manufactured and installed thousands of kilometers of submarine cable for repeaterless systems throughout the entire world -- sometimes under extremely difficult conditions such as the rocky sea floor of Spencer Golf, Australia, or the offshore oilfields along the Nigerian coast. Many of the systems are part of the most significant submarine cable systems of the world such as the 1,650-kilometer long submarine cable system in Greece or the 2,600-kilometer DFON system on the Philippines. With MINISUB™, a sturdy but super-light fiber-optic cable, NSW revolutionized repeaterless submarine cable technology and developed a cable-laying and logistics concept that uniquely satisfies customer demands with its short implementation phase.
In February 2000, NSW was acquired by Corning, the world leader in fiber-optic technology. While managed by Corning, NSW installed one of the longest hybrid submarine cable systems in the world. It has 9,000 kilometers of cable and connects 15 countries.
NSW joined the General Cable Corporation in April 2007.
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