Anchorage Daily News

KETCHIKAN -- Ketchikan is getting closer to linking into a fiber-optic network.

The International Telecom vessel Intrepid has begun to lay down an undersea telecommunications cable.

It's the second phase of General Communication Inc.'s $33-million project to connect Southeast Alaska to its fiber-optic network.

The effort involves putting 360 miles of cable under water west of Ketchikan to a branching unit in the Gulf of Alaska.

Ketchikan officials and others recently got a tour of the 377-foot-long cable ship.

The cable is put into the water from the stern side of the ship, dropping to the sea floor where it sometimes is buried, said Amelie Tessier, the vessel's second officer.

Trailing behind the ship are floats, so the crew can see where the cable has gone, Tessier said.

Seven repeaters also will be dropped into the ocean, connecting the cable every 60 miles, according to GCI spokesman David Morris.

"If the cable ever breaks, we isolate it between the repeaters," he said.

Before it is dropped in the water, the cable is spliced and tested by the ship's crew, Tessier said. The final splice will be at a unit that already connects Anchorage with fiber optics in Oregon.

The first phase of the project involved laying undersea cable from Ketchikan to Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau, Angoon and Sitka.

The network is expected to go online in November.

ADVERTISEMENT