The Arctic Sounder
The Arctic Sounder

Subsea cable break could interrupt, slow Arctic communications for months, company says

Quintillion repair crew with the broken shoreside fiber optic cable aboard the deck of the Integrity about 30 miles north of Oliktok Point. this summer. Photo courtesy of Quintillion.

For the second time since its installation, the subsea cable that provides high-speed internet and telecommunication service has been severed, this time near Oliktok Point.

Quintillion, the company which owns the cable, said repairs may not be possible until late summer, and the company president said in a release that it is exploring a work-around via an overland cable.

“Given the importance of high-speed internet service to North Slope and Northwest communities, as well as U.S. national defense, Quintillion is aggressively exploring options to expedite an alternative solution,” Quintillion president Mac McHale said in a release. “This includes building a ‘land bridge’ or terrestrial route from Utqiaġvik to Deadhorse to create a self-healing network ring.”

Meanwhile, the North Slope Borough said its main priority was finding alternative means of providing its rural communities with essential services during the outage.

Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak said Monday that the borough was assessing the availability of services on a community-by-community basis.

“In the coming days, our team will visit each community to install and test alternative communication solutions and restore essential services,” Patkotak said in a release.

During the previous cable break in 2023, villages reportedly struggled to maintain communication, relying on VHF radios and scarce satellite phones. The expansion of Starlink satellite internet into the region may moderate the impacts of this outage for some, while GCI and AT&T worked to find work-around cell and internet technologies to keep its services running.

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GCI reported Monday that its internet services in Nome, Kotzebue, Wainwright, Point Hope and Utqiagvik may be slower due to the Quintillion outage, while mobile phone service should still work. AT&T cell service is reportedly working for some communities, such as Kotzebue.

Quintillion said the land bridge fix would require “significant assistance from the federal government.” According to the company release, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope filed a joint application last March for a FEMA grant to help fund redundant systems that can “withstand acts of Mother Nature.” The company called on the Alaska congressional delegation and the incoming administration to expedite the new on-land fiber route.

However, even assuming full government cooperation, Quintillion said it expected the 190-mile “land bridge” project connecting Utqiagvik to Deadhorse would take months to complete.

Meanwhile, Quintillion said it is working on more permanent solutions that would stabilize the fiber-optic service, not only for the Arctic but for yet unserviced regions on the Alaska coastline south of Nome.

In an interview just days before this most recent outage, public radio station KNOM reported that the company plans to complete a ring around Alaska, running subsea cables as well as on-land cables. Once complete, the high-speed internet service could be routed in either direction, thus mitigating the impact of a break.

The project reportedly had a price tag of more than $150 million, and was expected to be completed by late 2026 with service operational by early 2027, the station reported.