AK-WA Connection 2009: ACS sprints ahead in Alaska telecom race

New fiber-optic cable brings geographical diversity, greater reliability to telecommunications provider’s connections to Outside

By Rose Ragsdale

Alaska-Washington Connection

When Alaska Communications Systems brought its new undersea fiber-optic cable on line in April, the company became the only telecommunications provider in Alaska with two subsea links that follow different geographic routes to the Lower 48.

ACS hailed completion of its Alaska-Oregon Network, or AKORN, as one of the nation’s most significant projects of its type in the past decade.

Why? Because the high-speed, high-performance fiber-optic cable system has enhanced bandwidth capacity and security between Alaska and the rest of the world at a time when demand for fast and reliable ways to transmit and store vast amounts of data is growing at an average yearly rate of 40 percent.

“This fiber facility, coupled with our unique in-state data networks, positions ACS to serve significant carrier and enterprise customers who have needs for end-to-end solutions connecting the Lower 48 and Alaska,” said ACS Chairman, President and CEO Liane Pelletier. “The physical characteristics of this system, from its distinct exit path from Alaska to its unique undersea path to its strategically located landing site in Oregon, its 25-year life, substantially superior performance characteristics, and bandwidth capacity that is greater than any other fiber linking the Lower 48 and Alaska, translate into a superior asset able to compete for an estimated $200 million market shaped by strong growth fundamentals.”

“AKORN brings competition, route diversity and massive capacity to Alaska,” said ACS Executive Vice President Anand Vadapalli, who is in charge of technology and operations at the Anchorage-based company.

Alaska businesses, institutions and government agencies are clamoring for more bandwidth, and AKORN gives ACS an important competitive edge with large commercial customers, the company’s newest target market, said Steve Gebert, ACS director of program management.

“Everybody wants more bandwidth,” Gebert said. “As businesses become more global and spread out geographically, they need to have their different offices interconnected.”

ACS undertook construction of the new undersea cable at a cost of roughly $105 million. The company chose a unique route from Point Woronzof in West Anchorage across Cook Inlet to the Kenai Peninsula and overland to Homer before burying it beneath the ocean floor across the Gulf of Alaska to Florence, Ore.

The three other undersea fiber optic cables in Alaska follow similar routes down Turnagain Arm before entering the Gulf of Alaska in Whittier or Valdez and then connecting with Lower 48 communications networks in Oregon or Washington State.

“Previously, Alaska’s businesses sent all their traffic through cables that run in close proximity to each other, making them highly susceptible to disaster,” said Vadapalli. Gebert said most of Alaska’s communications could have been affected by a single catastrophic event.

AKORN enables ACS to offer its nearly half a million customers the security of redundant communications links to the rest of the world, an important protection in a place prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and avalanches. This is especially critical for the military, government, businesses and carrier customers, according to ACS.

“Our customers’ data is so critical that with AKORN, we are preparing not only for the Big One, but also for all of the little ones,” Gebert said.

Fiber technology advances

“The individual strands of fiber-optic glass are as thin as a human hair, and laser equipment at each end of the network transmit information via laser light across that glass and it is amplified as it goes through repeaters that lay on the bottom of the ocean that operate electronically for 25 years, or the life of the system,” Gebert said.

The AKORN cable contains four fiber pairs while Alaska’s other subsea cables have just two or three pairs, and a much lower design capacity. The four fiber pairs enables AKORN’s cable and advanced electronics in the network to move an incredibly vast amount of data, more than triple Alaska’s existing interstate bandwidth capacity.

Using the newest technology available, the system has ultimate capacity to transmit 64 10-gigabit wavelengths on each of the four fiber pairs for a total potential bandwidth of about 2.6 terabits per second, or the data equivalent of 320 sets of Encyclopedia Britannica or 33 million simultaneous phone calls per second.

To lay the cable, ACS supplier, Tyco Telecommunications, brought its ship, the CS Resolute, to Homer in July 2008 loaded with 3,000 kilometers, or 1,860 miles, of the special fiber-optic cable. Enclosed in armored casing, the fiber cable was buried at least 1.2 meters, or nearly four feet, beneath the ocean floor.

Divers buried the first 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, of the cable under Cook Inlet before crews extended the cable overland from Nikiski to Homer. There, the Resolute’s crew went to work laying the cable under the ocean floor at a greater depth than previous cables to protect it from fishing gear and boat anchors.

The high-speed, high-performance cable will be continuously monitored and managed by ACS’ dual network operations control centers in Anchorage and Raleigh, N.C., a security feature that no other telecom carrier in Alaska provides.

“AKORN is the only fiber-optic cable that connects Alaska to the world along a geographically diverse route for greater security and reliability,” said Vadapalli.

Redundant network, reliable service

Today, AKORN complements Northstar, which links Anchorage with Nedonna Beach, Ore. Both cables travel from their separate landing sites in Oregon to network peering points in Portland and Seattle over diverse paths. Together, they create a fiber ring that provides alternate routes in the event of a network disruption and have the ability to reroute traffic in less than 50 milliseconds, according to ACS.

AKORN and Northstar also are integrated with the only statewide MPLS network, connecting cities across Alaska and linking Anchorage and Fairbanks — Alaska’s major economic corridor — with dual fiber routes.

MPLS networks allow businesses to have a cost-effective, private, secure and easy-to-use Internet services in lieu of having to build their own point-to-point circuits, ACS said.

“AKORN represents ACS’ single largest project in its history, but its value is enhanced because it leverages all of our network assets. Our statewide, and now interstate, diversity is part of our portfolio of services designed to ensure business continuity for Alaska businesses, including remote data hosting in our carrier-grade facility in Hillsboro, Ore.,” Vadapalli said. “Our statewide IP-based network, combined with the AKORN and Northstar cable systems gives ACS customers capacity and reliability unmatched by any other Alaska carrier.”