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The Kodiak-Kenai Cable Company today announced plans to finance, design, build and operate an express undersea fiber optic cable connecting Asia and Europe routed through the Arctic.

 

The ArcticLink –to be completed in 2013 –will enhance global broadband connectivity by providing superior internet capacity, security and latency compared to existing offerings.

 

“ArcticLink is the answer to the fast-growing telecommunications demands created by the globalized economy,” said Walt Ebell, CEO of KKCC, an Alaskan-based developer and owner of telecommunications infrastructure. “Creating this international broadband expressway through the Arctic will allow unprecedented capacity, unmatched security and reliability, and a dramatic latency reduction. Connecting these three continents directly is truly historic.”


Scheduled to begin construction in 2011, the 16000 km (10000 miles) undersea fiber optic ArcticLink will utilize a politically stable route that will run from Japan through the Arctic region to the United Kingdom.

Specific technical and planning highlights of the project includes the utilization of four 40 Gbps subsea fiber pairs, providing four times the existing capacity per wavelength for a combined system capacity of 6.4 Tbps. Another highlight is record-setting latencies of less than 90 milliseconds – a nearly 50 percent reduction compared with today’s preferred Asia-Europe route latency times. The product will make use of a politically stable and secure route through Japan, United States, Canada, Greenland and the United Kingdom.

 

In Alaska, 143 Native American tribes and 142 communities are hoping Kodiak Kenai Cable Company’s Northern Fiber Optic Link wins funding from NTIA and RUS to deploy a shovel-ready, 3,500 mile “middle-mile” submarine fiber optic network across Western Alaska, TMCnet reported recently.

 

According to KKCC, NFOL construction will directly benefit 23 states around the country and directly support nearly 6,000 jobs. More than 80 percent of these jobs and money spent on the project will occur outside of Alaska. Additionally, the NFOL will pump more than $431 million of economic activity into the economies of 23 states.

 

“In terms of jobs created or saved, this would be one of the largest single job creating infrastructure projects in the entire country to be funded under the Recovery Act, and one of the most efficient in terms of dollars spent per job,” said Walt Ebell, CEO of KKCC.