Crisis Over: Alaska City's Internet Returns
Subsea tear to GCI's fiber network occurred on Aug. 29.
Ted Hearn
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15, 2024 – An isolated Alaska community reachable only by air and sea lost its main internet and mobile service last month, causing thousands to adjust their lives and businesses to a vexing Internet-age disruption.
On Saturday, Alaska's leading communications company, GCI, said the broadband network had been repaired and all services restored to the 9,000 people of the city of Sitka.
"GCI teams worked through the night and have successfully restored all services in Sitka. We will continue to closely monitor our network over the next several days for any intermittent issues that may arise as the network stabilizes," GCI spokesman Josh Edge said in an email to Broadband Breakfast.
On Aug. 29, GCI reported damage to the subsea fiber line serving Sitka. While a repair ship sped to the fiber tear location, GCI was able to provide Sitkans with limited Internet service using microwave and satellite facilities.
Some Sitkans got by with Starlink terminals, including the local police headquarters and the public library, whose free Wi-Fi service connected users standing outside. During the blackout, elective surgeries were postponed and many businesses went cash-only.
"We appreciate everyone’s patience as we’ve worked to fully restore services in the community," Edge said.
GCI has not disclosed how the fiber network's damage occurred.
Sitka's sudden loss of Internet access highlighted the economic importance of fiber networks buried in the seabed.
As Broadband Breakfast reported one day before the Sitka event, a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies warned U.S. officials about the risks facing subsea fiber systems, pointing to a deliberate pattern of attacks by China.
Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft own or lease around half of all undersea bandwidth worldwide, the CSIS report said.
Sitka, located on Baranof Island on the Alaska panhandle, has no roads to the mainland.
In 1867, Sitka hosted the ceremony where Russia handed the U.S. title to Alaska's 365 million acres. Today, Sitka is a major port of call for cruise ships, which deliver about 500,000 tourists in a year.
