GCI prepares for its $58 million fiber optic link to the Aleutians

GCI has preparations underway for its $58 million project to lay a submarine fiber optic cable to Unalaska, in the Aleutians.

Working with a Mat-Su based company, Benthic GeoScience Inc., GCI has completed one of two required marine surveys of the cable route and the second is now underway.

Laying of the fiber-optic cable is scheduled to begin next spring with broadband and other services to be available through the cable by the end of 2022.

“We are expecting to turn up service in Unalaska in late 2022 with the other communities to follow. We have some groundwork to do in each community, so we won’t have a firm timeline on when those communities will be brought online,” GCI spokesperson Jason Edge said.

Six other Aleutians coastal communities will be connected to the cable in including King Cove, False Pass, Akutan, Sand Point, Chignik Bay and Larson Bay. The project will deliver urban-level speed, service and reliability to the Aleutian communities.

The project is supported by a $25 million U.S Department of Agriculture “ReConnect” grant, which will be supplemented with a $33 million private investment by GCI.

The first marine survey charted the route and subsea floor and terrain along 860 miles from Kodiak to Unalaska along the south side of the Aleutian Island chain. The second survey, focused on geotechnical issues, will gather samples of the seafloor.

Seafloor samples will give planners information on what’s below the surface of the seafloor so the cable can be safely buried in the sediments.

“We’ve been planning for this project including figuring out the fiber route since 2017. Now we will get detailed data on what’s going on down there,” said GCI Senior Staff Engineer Bruce Rein.

“We’ve strategically designed a route for the fiber that prioritizes safety and conservation, for example routing around known high-effort fishing grounds,” he said.

A planning challenge for GCI’s project team is coordinating the logistics of building shelters for the fiber to be delivered at the same time the fiber is being laid while also contending with the fact that there are very few fiber builders and ships built to install fiber in the ocean,” said Rebecca Markley, GCI’s Vice President of Network Operation.

“All of this is combined with the fact that the time window for installation is small in Alaska,” she said, which requires a carefully coordinated effort.

Lack of access to high-speed internet and broadband has been a challenge for Unalaska, a major U.S. fishing port where operators of large seafood processing plants and freight vessels that call there have a real need for advanced telecommunications.

Delivering service across rural Alaska with distance and small communities requires a comprehensive approach and a willingness to use every tool, said Billy Wailand, GCI’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Development.

That includes fiber, microwave, geostationary satellites and the newest entry, Low Earth Orbit Satellites, or LEOS, that are now being launched.

The new LEOs providers include OneWeb, SpaceX and Telesat, all of which have been in talks with GCI, the company said.

The LEOS, as well as traditional geostationary satellites, are a possible option for rural Alaska communities not connected or unlikely to be served by fiber or microwave systems like GCI’s TERRA network.

“We are confident the LEOS will become an important part of the toolkit over time, but we need to be confident of their performance and ability to meet customers’ current and future demands,” Wailand said.