GCI Crews Lay Cable Across Cook Inlet

July 04, 2011|by Rhonda McBride | Channel 2 News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Work continues this holiday weekend on a laying a fiber-optic cable across Cook Inlet. Crews based on the IT Intrepid, a telecom cable-laying ship, have been placing line under the water since last month with cable in shallow areas being buried.

Their work began in Homer, the starting point for GCI’s “Project Terra - Southwest.” Workers have now reached the halfway mark, between Homer and the Lake Iliamna area, on the opposite shore.

This is the first leg of the project, which will eventually connect 65 communities in Western Alaskan and will bring high-speed Internet to 9,000 households, which are now dependent on a slow and unreliable satellite system.

In about two weeks the cable will reach Williamsport, on the other side of the inlet -- a major milestone for the project, which required lots of research to get to this point.

“We’ve done a very detailed survey to know what kind of bottom we’ll run into,” says Bruce Rein, the fiber installation manager for GCI. Rein says the survey includes data about the kinds of sediments on the floor of Cook Inlet, as well as water depths.

"We need to know all that detail, so we can design the cable to fit the bottom," said Rein.

Once the inlet leg of the cable system is finished, it will run under the floor of Lake Iliamna and connect to Igiugig. It’ll also branch off to Northeast, to include Port Alsworth.

Last winter, cable was buried between Igiugig and Levelock. From there, the system will extend to other communities in the Bristol Bay region, via a network of microwave towers that are being installed this year. Eventually, the project will reach Bethel and serve communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

The project will cost $88 million, half of which comes from federal stimulus funds.

Contact Rhonda McBride at rmcbride@ktuu.com

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