Alaska is first phase of Arctic Ocean fiber optic project

  • Monday, May 11, 2015 1:38pm
  • News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Marine surveying will start again this summer near Alaska’s coastal communities in a wide-reaching effort to improve communications by laying a $700 million fiber-optic cable linking Europe and Asia through the Arctic Ocean.

The Alaska Dispatch News reports lingering sea ice in Canada’s Northwest Passage has caused project delays for cable-laying ships that don’t have the ability to adjust course like transport ships do.

Anchorage-based Quintillion Holdings is a partner in a project initiated by Canada-based Arctic Fibre. Quintillion CEO Elizabeth Pierce says her company has a larger role now than it had at the project’s inception.

ADVERTISEMENT
0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
00:00
00:00
 

Developers are now using a phased approach, Pierce said, with work starting on links from Asia to Nome and Prudhoe Bay to Europe after the Alaska portion of the project is finished.

“We will methodically work through all elements to deliver a smart project,” she said.

Pierce says her company plans to break ground in May to install about 500 miles of fiber-optic cable from Fairbanks north to Deadhorse, and is developing a subsea line from the oil field complex of Prudhoe Bay that’ll come ashore in Nome, a Western Alaska community.

That subsea line will have offshoots providing service to four more Alaska communities.

This summer’s marine surveying will help determine cable routes and protective measures that’ll be necessary.

Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative is an investor in Quintillion, and director of operations Jens Laipenieks says the satellite or microwave connections currently in use by rural communities are costly and provide sporadic coverage.

“A fiber-optic connection will never have issues like snow in the satellite dish or solar interference, and it is much faster as far as lower latency technology,” he said. “So instead of taking 500 or 600 milliseconds, it will be 20 or 30 milliseconds.”

More in News

Rep. Andi Story (D-Juneau), Rep. Rebecca Himschoot (I-Sitka), and Rep. Sarah Vance (R-Homer) watch the vote tally during a veto override joint session on an education bill Tuesday, May 20. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Dunleavy outlines priorities for special session

The Senate and House majority say the Legislature plans to consider two veto overrides.

Mount Marathon, seen July 4, 2022, in Seward, Alaska. (Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Swiss hiker rescued near Mount Marathon in Seward

The hiker said he’d climbed a mountain and gone beyond his ability

tease
‘All the kids are grand champions’

Kenai Peninsula 4-H shows off at Agriculture Expo

Soldotna City Council member Jordan Chilson and Soldotna Mayor Paul Whitney grill hot dogs at the Progress Days Block Party at Parker Park in Soldotna, Alaska, on Saturday, July 26, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Progress Days block party keeps celebration going

Vendors, food trucks, carnival games and contests entertained hundreds

Children take candy from a resident of Heritage Place during the 68th Annual Soldotna Progress Days Parade in Soldotna, Alaska, on Saturday, July 26, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
‘It feels so hometown’

68th Annual Soldotna Progress Days parade brings festivity to city streets

Kachemak Bay is seen from the Homer Spit in March 2019. (Homer News file photo)
Toxin associated with amnesic shellfish poisoning not detected in Kachemak Bay mussels

The test result does not indicate whether the toxin is present in other species in the food web.

Superintendent Clayton Holland speaks during a meeting of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education in Soldotna, Alaska, on Monday, July 7, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Federal education funding to be released after monthlong delay

The missing funds could have led to further cuts to programming and staff on top of deep cuts made by the KPBSD Board of Education this year.

An angler holds up a dolly varden for a photograph on Wednesday, July 16. (Photo courtesy of Koby Etzwiler)
Anchor River opens up to Dollies, non-King salmon fishing

Steelhead and rainbow trout are still off limits and should not be removed from the water.

A photo provided by NTSB shows a single-engine Piper PA-18-150 Super Cub, that crashed shortly after takeoff in a mountainous area of southwestern Alaska, Sept. 12, 2023. The plane was weighed down by too much moose meat and faced drag from a set of antlers mounted on its right wing strut, federal investigators said on Tuesday.
Crash that killed husband of former congresswoman was overloaded with moose meat and antlers, NTSB says

The plane, a single-engine Piper PA-18-150 Super Cub, crashed shortly after takeoff in a mountainous area of southwestern Alaska on Sept. 12, 2023.

Most Read

You're browsing in private mode.
Please sign in or subscribe to continue reading articles in this mode.

Peninsula Clarion relies on subscription revenue to provide local content for our readers.

Subscribe

Already a subscriber? Please sign in