By DRUE PEARCE
In the early 1980s, I was a bank manager in Kotzebue, Alaska, 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Those were the days of handwritten checks, paper records, and hand-updated documents. When broadband brought high-speed internet to Alaska, all that paper went digital, and residents never looked back—until last month, when an act of nature took them offline again.
A subsea fiber system from Prudhoe Bay to Nome began service in 2017, bringing high-speed internet service to North Slope and Northwest Arctic communities, US military assets, and Alaska’s North Slope oil fields. The system, owned by the private global communications corporation Quintillion, carries traffic for retail internet providers and government communications systems.
In the last few years, however, two ice-scouring events have sliced the cable buried in the Beaufort Sea, knocking out service to the Northern and Western coasts of Alaska, including Kotzebue and the entire Northwest Arctic region. In June 2023, an iceberg – something only those living in the Arctic region of the US deal with – dragging along the seabed severed the broadband fiber cable that kept many parts of Alaska connected. It was thought to be a “once in a lifetime” cut, but then last month, it happened again.
To their credit, Quintillion began working with scientific experts to better understand the unexpected offshore ice scouring in the Beaufort Sea immediately after the 2023 cable fault. At the time, they completed a challenging subsea repair to restore service, but the need for a resilient, redundant system in the future was clear.
They determined that the most expedient alternative solution, should there be a future issue with the subsea cable, would be to build a terrestrial “land bridge” onshore across State of Alaska lands and the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska (NPR-A), from Utqiagvik to Prudhoe Bay, and create a “loop.” This would provide the imperative redundancy needed to protect the system’s operational efficiency.
Over a year ago, Quintillion started working with the Inupiat Community of the Arctic to apply for a FEMA Building Resilience in Communities grant to assist in funding the construction of the land bridge. BRIC grants are specifically for supporting communities as they build capacity and capability to reduce hazard risks.
Given Alaska’s role in our national defense, as home to the largest oil field in North America, and its significant energy production, a government investment in the system’s resiliency seems like a no-brainer. However, the window for awarding grants came and went last fall, and in a seemingly last kick to Alaska before he left office, the Biden administration identified the application for further review but then did nothing with it.
President Biden’s war on Alaska began as soon as he took office. He sought to continuously lock up lands, shut down resource development — the lifeblood of the state’s economy — and restrict access to opportunity. In his final few days in office, Biden’s administration rolled out yet another swath of NPR-A regulations designed to create a wilderness area in a place specifically set aside for development and force his ideologies on Alaskans without considering how they would affect the state and its residents. And for that, the funding needed to bring resilient high-speed internet access back to North and Western Alaska sits in a holding pattern.
To the contrary, President Trump made it clear from day one that he understands the importance of Alaska to our country’s energy security and national security and has prioritized economic movement and development. In the three short weeks since his inauguration, he has gotten more done for the good of this country and the state I call home than in all of Biden’s four years. President Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are now in the position to move the FEMA BRIC grant forward and ensure the systems needed for energy development, national defense systems, and quality of life can be quickly brought back online and made resilient for the future.
Mother Nature makes the Arctic a hard enough place to do business without having to worry about Uncle Sam’s hoops and red tape. We should encourage investment and welcome those who continue to innovate, drive progress, and create opportunities for Alaska and for the good of the country.
Drue Pearce served as deputy administrator of the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration at the U.S Department of Transportation, as a senior adviser to U.S. Department of the Interior Secretaries Gale Norton and Dirk Kempthorne, and as the federal coordinator at the Office of Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects. She also served twice as the Alaska State Senate president and is now with Holland and Hart.
Very good article from a very good Alaskan!
The subsea cable should have never been approved. What a waste of money. And now more money has to be poured into it. They should have done more research on a satellite Wi-Fi system.
This is all good and sounds promising, but why are they relying on the feds? ASRC is the richest native organization in the world, over 2 billion annually. Why don’t they use their own money instead of the taxpayers? Why don’t they go satellite?
Interesting that in the year 2025 with thousands of communication satellites in space that we need a wire in the ocean? Nuiqsuit was given the go ahead for new high speed internet and it was decided by Congress for hard wired system across tundra at a cost of $40 million . Starlink could have been given to several thousand remote users for a fraction of that amount . Things don’t add up ?
Cables are secure communication, do you really want to turn our security over to Elon?
Cables are NOT secure. They are easy to tap and have been tapped since the 60s.
With respect, Frank, undersea-cable interception’s been around since WWI when Brits and Germans did it.
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Then there was Operation Ivy Bells in 1971. Care to guess what they’re doing in 2025?
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Finagle internet router protocol BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), you can intercept unencrypted communication anywhere around the world.
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All we know about “two ice-scouring events” is what we’re told which, if it involves government and private contractors,… don’t we know how that works.
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Stuff like this hits the headlines, it might be helpful to take another look at your security protocol(s).
Yes, you do, as he gets the job done unlike the grifters busily installing and repairing broken fiber. Of course, if you rely on Elon, you will actually get bulletproof service at a decent price. The drawback is the companies grifting off fiber will no longer have taxpayer $$$ available to donate to Alaskan political campaigns in hopes of scoring more taxpayer $$$ which would seem to be a benefit rather than a difficulty. Cheers –
Trump has put $$$’Billions of Alaska grant money on hold simply because the bi lateral IRA agreement signed by the Alaska delegation was also signed by Joe Biden Trump is destroying the Alaska economy out of spite
Complaints about destroying Alaska’s economy by folks whike cheering the previous anti-Alaskan administration aren’t to be taken as serious discussion points. #leftistgaslightingisbeyondridiculous #youmustsuspendlogicandreasontobelieveleftisttalkingpoints
It’s not about Biden. It’s about Lisa, who has set herself up as all Orange Man Bad all the time. Trump is simply returning fire. Lisa is gonna end up a lot like Zelensky did last Friday, as someone who let her alligator mouth overload her hummingbird backside much to the detriment of her state.
Want the agreement to go into effect? You really need to talk to Lisa. Cheers –
” no brainer”… Hmmm… It’s called low earth satellites…
In a time of war, your cable system is a stationary target, marked on google maps.
Satellites will also be targeted. All you need is a rocket that will put something at altitude, a simple up and down hop, and a bucket of nails at the right place and time. Cheers –
It’s sad to see Drue chasing this pork barrel nonsense. We need Alaska DOGE ASAP. How about we just get some Starlinks up there for a fraction of the cost……….
Agree. Drue has been a government employee in one form or other for her entire working adult life.
She started in the legislature in the early 80’s. I much prefer dealing with someone who has some private sector experience. Government types, whether Democrat or Republican, have narrow perspectives about technology, communication and transportation.
So… the state better fork over lots of money to Quintillion and Native Corporations so Quintillion –and investment bankers– don’t go broke from predictable effects of seismicity and/or undersea sabotage attempts meant to test America’s undersea cable defense and restoration capabilities?
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What, Quintillion’s too cheap to buy cable insurance, so taxpayers better pick up the repair tab or Kotzebue’s gonna lose Netflix?
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This “prioritizing infrastructure” schtick couldn’t have anything to do with how many times “Quintillion” shows up in “Alaska Lobbyist Directory”?
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Some sort of bail out, that’s what this is all about, gotta DOGE it to find out … how’s that for a country song?
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Couldn’t be as simple as Chinese or Russians returning the favor for something we did to them …who’d tell us if it was?
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We trust the same officials who’ve FUBAR’d pretty much everything they’ve touched to date to tell us what’s going on?
That is why we should look into satellite. Cables are now outdated! Of course when a legislator has a conflict of interest and continues to push that interest we have a problem like this!
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