Alaska Faces Prolonged Internet Outage as Repairs Loom

Quintillion Cable Repair Efforts Underway Amidst Arctic Challenges

Seven months after a critical fiberoptic cable break plunged western and northern Alaska into prolonged internet darkness, repair operations are finally gearing up. Quintillion’s President, Mac McHale, indicated that comprehensive planning for vessel, tool, and crew mobilization is complete, with repairs anticipated in late summer or early fall.

Mobilization for Arctic Operations

The repair process is in its mobilization phase, with two vessels docked in Vancouver. One ship will execute the necessary cable repairs, while the other will recover and re-bury the damaged segment. The repair vessel is en route to Dutch Harbor to collect essential supplies, personnel, and equipment.

Both vessels are scheduled to proceed to the Beaufort Sea and await ice retreat in Wainwright. Current forecasts suggest they will reach the damaged cable, located approximately 30 miles north of Oliktok Point, during the second week of August. The exact duration of the repairs remains uncertain, especially given that a previous repair in 2023 took longer than initially projected.

“You’re essentially at the mercy of ice-free waters,” stated McHale.

Upon arrival, remote operating vehicles equipped with high-resolution cameras and dive teams will be deployed to locate the severed cable. The damaged sections will be brought aboard, repaired through splicing, and then re-secured on the seafloor. Quintillion plans to utilize a new method for reburial this time, incorporating rock bags at critical “transition points” to prevent future movement.

History of Connectivity Disruptions

This incident marks the third cable failure for Quintillion in two years and the second major outage impacting a significant number of residents for an extended period. In June 2023, an ice scour near Oliktok Point caused an outage lasting over three months. An earlier incident in April 2024 affected internet and cellular services for about 12 hours due to damage to an onshore cable segment.

During these disruptions, telecommunications providers GCI and Fastwyre (formerly Telalaska) experienced difficulties maintaining service levels. Both companies offered credits to customers and explored satellite internet solutions. GCI, in particular, has bolstered its backup satellite systems, and according to spokesperson Megan Webb, all GCI users in Nome and Utqiagvik have regained full service, independent of the fiberoptic link.

However, the transition has been challenging for many. LeeAnn Hoogendorn, Manager of Munaqsri Senior Apartments, recounted months of reliance on personal phone hotspots before obtaining Starlink service in March. Numerous businesses and public entities, including the Nome Courthouse, Northrim Bank, Alaska Commercial Company, and Sitnasuak Native Corporation, also adopted Starlink following the 2023 outage.

The City of Nome recently integrated Starlink as a backup for its GCI service after experiencing communication disruptions affecting its offices, police department, museum, library, and utilities. This reliance on Starlink, however, was tested on July 24th when the satellite provider experienced an international outage lasting nearly three hours.

“When we lost the internet we lost our remote computers and some of our phones,” explained Utility Manager John Handeland. “It messed a bunch of our systems up.”

Starlink’s Vice President of Engineering, Michael Nicolls, attributed the disruption to a failure in “key internal software services that operate the core network,” apologizing for the temporary service interruption.

Future Redundancy and Resilience Plans

Quintillion is actively pursuing two redundancy projects to enhance network resilience. The first involves a proposed terrestrial cable route from Utqiagvik to Prudhoe Bay, designed to create a self-healing ring on the North Slope. This would allow traffic to reroute automatically if the subsea cable experiences a break.

Additionally, Quintillion is working on the Nome to Homer express project, a fiberoptic ring intended to circumnavigate Alaska, with completion expected by the end of 2026 and full operation in 2027. “That is to make sure that when lightning strikes or iceberg strikes or parachutes through the cable, or whatever happens in this remote, austere environment that our network will self-yield and continue to provide services,” assured McHale.

Securing federal funding for the Prudhoe Bay terrestrial route proved challenging after FEMA’s BRIC grant program was suspended on April 8th. Quintillion has since applied for a different federal infrastructure grant through the Defense Community Infrastructure Program. The immediate priority, however, remains the successful repair of the existing Beaufort Sea cable.

“As soon as it’s safe to enter the area, we will. We have all the right tools, the right crews, everybody knows what the drill is. There’s experience from the last episode, two years ago, and we utilize all that to the best advantage and get this thing done efficiently, effectively and move on to the second layer and third layer of redundancy,” McHale concluded.