Subsea Cable Project: Tokyo to London via NW Passage

Arctic Fibre Inc plans to construct a 15,167 km (9,424 mile) subsea fibre optic cable; North Alaska Slope residents to benefit.

Arctic Fibre announce that it will partner with Anchorage-based Quintillion Networks, LLC to provide broadband telecommunications services to more than 26,500 Alaska residents living along the Alaskan North Slope and Bering Sea coastline, and to provide a geographically diverse alternate fibre route for traffic from the United States to Europe and Asia.

Arctic Fibre was established in 2009 to explore deploying a fibre optic telecommunications system through the Canadian Arctic. Arctic Fibre plans to construct a 15,167 km (9,424 mile) subsea fibre optic cable extending from Tokyo, Japan to London, England via the Bering Strait, Beaufort Sea and Canadian Arctic with a planned in-service date of November 2014.

Arctic Fibre’s backbone network will reduce the cost of wholesale bandwidth by more than 85% in the Canadian communities of Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven, Taloyoak, Igloolik, Hall Beach, Cape Dorset and Iqaluit. The company successfully concluded a capacity nomination process for Canadian carriers in late 2012 and is now moving to formal contracts with a group of Canadian carriers and government agencies.

In December 2012, Arctic Fibre entered into an agreement with Quintillion Networks to serve the Alaska market as a wholesaler providing bandwidth to existing Alaska telecommunications carriers on a non-discriminatory basis.

Quintillion will act as Arctic Fibre’s landing party in the United States and will own subsea spurs from underwater branching units to at least five communities along the Alaskan coastline. “At this juncture, Quintillion will construct spurs between Arctic Fibre’s backbone and the communities of Prudhoe Bay, Barrow, Wainwright, Nome and Kotzebue,” said Douglas Cunningham, Chief Executive Officer of Arctic Fibre Inc.

Quintillion will soon file the landing license applications with the Federal Communications Commission.