Alaska makes connections with Europe and Asia

Far North Digital, an Alaskan company, announced plans on Dec. 21 to build an undersea internet cable with Finnish company Cinia. The project, Far North Fiber, would connect Europe, Asia and North America by a fiber optic cable using a novel route through the Northwest Passage.

The Arctic route of FNF is a first in the undersea cable industry. It provides the shortest path between Europe and Asia; a fact airlines have taken advantage of for years. The cable will come off Ireland and head west under the ocean. It will wrap around the bottom of Greenland, then go north between Canada and Greenland’s west coast, making its way through the Northwest Passage. From there, it circles around the top of the globe like a crown, heading west along the northern coasts of Alaska and Canada. Finally, it will go south, passing through the Bering Strait to end in Japan. FNF will tie into Alaska fiber networks via a branch into Prudhoe Bay. 

Normally blocked with ice, the Arctic has begun to open during certain times of year. Far North Digital highlights this opportunity on their website, “Now seasonally ice-free passages through Arctic seas make shorter, lower-latency and highly robust fiber optic routes available to diversely link northern telecom hubs and cable infrastructure.”

The 8,600-mile cable will be composed of 12 fiber optic cable pairs capable of transmitting 120 Terabits of data per second (2 pairs are reserved for local add/drop and have a capacity of 30 Tbps). To give some perspective, you could download the entire video game "Red Dead Redemption 2," a 150 GB file, in just .01 seconds. 99% of the internet traffic between continents travels underseas and the shorter path provides a speed advantage between Asia and Europe. 

I spoke with UAA Assistant Professor of computer science and engineering Sebastian Neumayer about the project. He said the shorter route, even if it shaved off a couple of milliseconds, would improve endpoint user experience between Asia, Europe and Alaska. The lower latency would nearly guarantee high-frequency stock traders as customers of the line too.

From Far North’s website, “Latency and the speed to financial markets, ten years ago, one estimate put the value of each millisecond of latency in high-frequency financial trading at over $100 million revenue per year.”

Another benefit of FNF, according to Neumayer, would be redundancy to Alaska’s, and the world’s, existing networks. Most of Alaska’s internet fibers take a similar route and a disaster, such as an earthquake, could sever multiple connections, making communications harder and less reliable. FNF will be a backup. 

As Neumayer put it, regarding the ability of networks to withstand disruption, “Every link you add to global networks … you make it more resistant.” Neumayer raised an interesting question though: how do they plan to repair a damaged cable, in the event of a line break, under sea ice?

Providing improved internet to Indigenous populations of the Arctic is another goal of FNF. According to an article from Alaska Public Media, people in remote Alaskan communities can pay well over $300 a month for internet.

From Far North’s press release, chief technical officer, Guy Hauser, was quoted as saying, “This cable system is more than a way to speed and improve the security of telecommunications between nations, it is a bridge over the digital divide, providing Northern communities with better opportunities for sustainable self-determination through economic development, enhanced educational options, and improved access to healthcare.”

For Alaska, an interesting aspect of this project is a new potential industry: hosting data centers. When people talk about storing data on the “cloud,” they are actually referring to massive, multi-acre, server farms. Big tech companies like Amazon and Google also have tremendous storage needs. Far North Digital seems to have this in mind. Their website indicates plans for building data storage facilities in Alaska.

Ireland has made hosting data centers an important part of its economy. The industry generates $39 billion annually for Ireland and employs 37,000 people. What makes it an attractive place to store data has much to do with low operating costs (via a generous corporate tax rate), cold temperatures, and favorable government regulations.

Data centers need to be kept cool to operate properly (some literally use billions of gallons of water). Alaska’s cold climate and abundance of water can reduce the expenses associated with cooling. Also, the low price of electricity on the North Slope, 4 cents per kilowatt hour, according to Far North Digital, can help drive costs down. US internet regulations make Alaska a promising location for data storage as well. Author Jeff Kosseff cites them as a reason tech companies keep their headquarters in the US.

Discussing the potential for data centers in Alaska with Neumayer, he noted one advantage the state might enjoy is its centrality in the network. Although companies try to build them near population centers, there is, he said, “a benefit to be removed from potential disasters.” A data center located at one end of a fiber line would get cut off if the line was damaged, but one in the middle of a network has multiple paths available in the event of a failure, ensuring uninterrupted service. 

Alcatel Submarine Networks, part of Nokia, has been selected to manage and build the FNF project. According to the company’s website, they have laid more than 370,000 miles of underwater network cables. 

Finances are expected to be secured by early 2022, though it is not clear who will be financing the project. New undersea cables are typically funded by a consortium of interested parties that usually includes telecommunication companies like AT&T, and content providers like Facebook, and Google. The project completion date is projected to be the end of 2025.