Alcatel to Install Submarine Cable Network in Alaska

Paris-based communications solutions provider Alcatel announced yesterday that its Maersk Defender cable ship is about to start laying a regional submarine cable network for Kodiak Kenai Cable Co. in Seward, Alaska. The new Kodiak Kenai Fiber Link (KKFL) will provide the first fiber-optic connections from Anchorage and Seward to communities on the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak Island, serving approximately 60,000 citizens as well as the Alaska Aerospace Development Corp. launch complex on Kodiak Island. Designed to provide an ultimate capacity of about 1 Tbit/s, the KKFL will stretch more than 900 km with landing points in Anchorage, Homer and Kenai, Mill Bay and Narrow Cape. Kodiak Kenai is currently working with local and long distance exchange carriers to provide access to broadband capacity for voice, Internet and Ethernet-based and other data services over the network. The project is scheduled to be completed by December.