An interesting book on the subject of telegraph networks is The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage [1]. As well as the technical and commercial drivers, it also describes how the telegraph forced people to confront concepts like simultaneity, information being distinct from its physical medium, privacy, early approaches to encryption, etc. A fascinating book.
When visiting Ayers Rock in Australia I stayed in Alice Springs. While I was there I learnt that Alice Springs exists because it was a repeater station for a telegraph line that stretched from Southern Australia all the way to London. There would be people listening to morse code, and tapping it out again to the next repeater station. Blew my mind that there was a wire that went all the way to London from Australia!
In the late-1700s/early-1800s the Admiralty Telegraph was used to relay messages between London and Portsmouth (70 odd miles apart) using a semaphore type system with repeater stations every 10 miles or so.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet
Before the telegraph they used to do things wirelessly: https://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/_downloads/telegraph/tele...
(Not quite London to Australia though...)
In the late-1700s/early-1800s the Admiralty Telegraph was used to relay messages between London and Portsmouth (70 odd miles apart) using a semaphore type system with repeater stations every 10 miles or so.
Unlike normal rubber, it is a type of thermoplastic and it's a popular organic plastic before the petroleum based modern plastic become pervasive [2].
[1] The legacy of undersea cables:
https://blog.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/the-legacy-of-underse...
[2] Gutta-percha:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha
And one of the old cable huts still exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Cable_Station
(There's also the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minack_Theatre built into the cliff face nearby.)
(I've been to the theatre a number of times but never convinced my in-laws to visit the Telegraph Museum.)