# Cable-to-nowhere? Why is this Alaskan Subsea Cable being built? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 27, 2016, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809 "2016-05-27T13:59:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/1 "2016-05-27T13:59:33Z")
I noticed [this subsea cable](http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/quintillion-subsea-cable-network) being built in Northern Alaska. No doubt that is a very challenging climate to lay a cable down (Iced in most of the year?). Each of the six landing sites are cites from 3,500 to 700 people. On another site, it says that the cable will have three fiber pairs, each carrying 10 Tb/s. So we are talking a connection of ~1.8 Gb/s for every man, woman and child. 😕 How on earth can this be financially viable? . Laying down subsea cables and connecting them to land is very expensive. No doubt there are thousands of neighborhoods/communities this size throughout the lower 48 that don’t have simple wired internet access, and connecting them would a tiny fraction of this cost. How does this work? Is the military involved somehow? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/2 "2016-05-27T14:05:09Z")
Is[this it?](http://arcticfibre.com/) Apparently it will connect Europe and Asia as well. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/3 "2016-05-27T14:15:15Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Is[this it?](http://arcticfibre.com/) > Apparently it will connect Europe and Asia as well. I don’t think so. [Here is info on the cable-to-nowhere.](https://www.alcatel-lucent.com/press/2015/alcatel-lucent-and-quintillion-subsea-holdings-build-undersea-cable-system-connecting-six) There is no mention of it connecting to anyone else besides northern Alaska. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/4 "2016-05-27T14:20:56Z")
[This page](http://quintillionnetworks.com/?page_id=172) shows the overall plan, including connections to Japan and the UK. It appears to be a privately financed project. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/5 "2016-05-27T15:56:23Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > [This page](http://quintillionnetworks.com/?page_id=172) shows the overall plan, including connections to Japan and the UK. It appears to be a privately financed project. Ah. Ok. That makes things more clear. So the northern Alaska part is just the first phase. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/6 "2016-05-27T16:13:48Z")
FYI, [this page](http://www.submarinecablemap.com/) shows all of the undersea data cables worldwide. There’s quite a lot of them. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/7 "2016-05-27T18:22:09Z")
General rule about fibre optic cables: If the current need is for X amount of bandwidth, they install at least 20X. They know that the demand will always increase and it’s cheaper to put in a lot extra rather than having to go back and add more. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/8 "2016-05-27T18:34:20Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > Each of the six landing sites are cites from 3,500 to 700 people. On another site, it says that the cable will have three fiber pairs, each carrying 10 Tb/s. So we are talking a connection of ~1.8 Gb/s for every man, woman and child. Another thing is that presumably the undersea cable will serve people farther inland than just the landing sites, possibly via underground or overground cable. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/9 "2016-05-27T18:39:26Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > [This page](http://quintillionnetworks.com/?page_id=172) shows the overall plan, including connections to Japan and the UK. It appears to be a privately financed project. I suspect that they’re relying on global warming to make Phase 3 feasible. In particular, the Fury and Hecla Strait (separating Baffin Island from the mainland) was never part of the “traditional” Northwest Passage because it was almost always closed by ice. [However, it appears to be a bit more navigable nowadays.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWGeFflNMdQ) ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/10 "2016-05-27T19:00:52Z")
To answer the OP’s question I would bet that the military is most definitely involved. Look at the route it takes to to the United Kingdom. This would be very useful for linking Alaskan and Northern Canadian early warning radar stations to the US mainland with high bandwidth. The US DoD probably told them they’d buy a certain amount of bandwidth at certain places for X number of years if they privately funded it. Terrestrial Fibre has huge advantages over satellite in both latency and bandwidth, it would make perfect sense that the DoD wants Fibre connections to everywhere they can. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/11 "2016-05-27T21:08:30Z")
There’s an article in the most recent Scientific American. Definitely a multi-phase project, expanding over time. And…why not? Aircraft use the Great Circle route; now data can! ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-to-nowhere-why-is-this-alaskan-subsea-cable-being-built/755809/12 "2016-05-27T21:23:06Z")
Aren’t data centres interested in operating in the Arctic? It’s free cooling!