$1.2 BILLION, 10,000 MILES OF FIBER-OPTIC CABLE AND PATIENCE
The story by ISABELLE BOUSQUETTE – WSJ March 11, 2023
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO CONNECT THE ARCTIC? “Arctic is one of the world’s last digital frontiers. Subsea fiber-optic cables, which carry over 99% of intercontinental voice and data traffic, have traversed most of the world’s oceans, but so far not the Arctic Ocean, historically limited by the region’s ice sheet.”
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The Story:
UTQIAGVIK, Alaska—Nestled between the whalebone-marked graves of long-dead whaling captains, an arctic fox den and a snow-covered beach, a series of satellite dishes point at the horizon from this northern Alaskan town.
Far from the superfast fiber- optic cables that provide internet connectivity to other parts of the world, Arctic towns like Utqiagvik have typically relied on more limited, less reliable satellite connections. It means that students can rarely stream educational videos, hospitals spend hours uploading medical scans and scientists sometimes struggle to simply open emails.
The Arctic is one of the world’s last digital frontiers. Subsea fiber-optic cables, which carry over 99% of intercontinental voice and data traffic, have traversed most of the world’s oceans, but so far not the Arctic Ocean, historically limited by the region’s ice sheet.
As that ice sheet has started melting due to climate change, telecommunications companies have looked to the area—where Asia, Europe and North America are closer than they are at any other point on Earth—for a shorter, potentially more efficient route for data flows across the three continents.
“Climate change is even making it technically all the time easier,” said AJ Knaapila, president and chief executive of Finnish telecommunications, cybersecurity and software company Cinia Oy, which, along with partners, hopes to build a submarine fiber-optic cable through the Arctic in coming years, a project estimated to cost roughly $1.2 billion.
An Arctic route would offer the shortest connection between London and Tokyo, carrying implications for industries like financial trading, where milliseconds can make the difference between profits and losses. It would also bring much-needed connectivity to rural northern towns like Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow, transforming one of the least digital regions to a major digital crossroads.
Cinia in the past year and a half formed a joint venture with Arteria Networks Corp. of Japan and Alaska’s Far North Digital LLC on the project. The current estimate for the length of the cable stands at about 10,500 miles, although the final length could vary, according to Alcatel Submarine Networks, the Nokia Corp. subsidiary contracted by the joint venture to lay the cable. With a route survey beginning this year, the cable system is scheduled to be operational in 2026. But when asked about the likelihood of that timeline being met, a Cinia official expressed uncertainty.