250 Miles of Fiber-Optic Cable Installed in Alaska

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — An Anchorage-based telecommunications company has recently finished installing 250 miles of fiber-optic cable connecting two communities in Alaska as part of a larger project to improve communications between Europe and Asia using the underwater cables.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports (http://bit.ly/2nKwDFl) Quintillion Holdings spokesman Tim Woolston says the cable linking Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope will bring broadband internet to the Arctic for the first time starting in mid-April.

Quintillion’s efforts in Alaska mark the first phase of the project to lay a fiber-optic cable linking Europe and Asia through the Arctic Ocean.

Last summer, the company started working to connect six Alaska coastal communities with 900 miles of underwater cables.

Woolston says he couldn’t provide an exact date for when the villages will have internet access, but that it’ll happen soon.