It was strategically important in WW1 because the British could communicate with the colonies with very chance little chance of messages being intercepted. The Germans, in contrast, didn't have access to their own transatlantic channels and had to use plain-text messages on cables that the UK/US controlled (US operators disallowed coded comms).

This forced Germans to build some of their own cables, super interesting history: https://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/innovatingincombat/yap-island-ger...