GCI (News - Alert), an Alaskan telecoms network operator in the Alaskan long-distance market, has announced today that engineers have begun to lay a new undersea fiber-optic cable in parts of the largest and northern most state.

 
The cable will connect Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Angoon and Sitka – cities in the southeast part of the state, below the capital of Juneau – into the main backbone network and provide greater capacity and routing resilience for the Alaskan network.
 
Operations onshore in Ketchikan start on July 18 and the cable will be laid down from the Inside Passage from Ketchikan to Juneau, from there it will head south to connect to Angoon and west to connect to Sitka.
 
The system is expected to be completed by November and will cost about $33 million. It will provide fiber-based connectivity to communities that have until now been reliant on microwave and satellite connections. The additional route will also benefit Juneau residents by relieving the load on existing systems and increasing the ability of the network to self-heal.
 
Alaska is the largest state in the United States in land area at 570,380 square miles, more than twice as large as Texas, the next largest state.
 
Eve Sullivan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Eve’s articles, please visit her columnist page.


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