Fiber Break Cuts Off Six Alaska Towns
Repair vessel weeks away as six aleutian communities lose service.
May 29, 2026 – A subsea fiber cable break has knocked out internet and wireless service across remote Alaska communities, with a repair vessel not expected on site for up to 14 days.
The break affects at least six communities along Alaska's Aleutian Chain, a remote island arc stretching more than 1,000 miles into the Pacific.
Megan Webb, director of corporate communications for GCI, told Broadband Breakfast in an email that crews located the fault Wednesday morning offshore near Chignik Bay, on a cable segment running between Larsen Bay and Chignik Bay. The company became aware of the outage around 7:30 a.m.
Communities affected include Akutan, Chignik Bay, False Pass, King Cove, Perryville and Unalaska.
Webb said GCI is coordinating with a repair vessel expected on site in seven to 14 days. In the meantime, the company has partially restored services through backup satellite systems, with wireless voice and texting back up. Wireless data and internet remain limited as technical teams manage network capacity across the backup systems.
GCI said it will prioritize restoring mobile service before internet.
Wednesday's break is the latest in a string of subsea cable failures that have strained GCI's network. In late December, a severe winter storm damaged GCI's subsea cable near Unalaska's Mount Ballyhoo, leaving the island without service for more than a week before a repair vessel arrived to splice it.
The Aleutian breaks are part of a broader pattern. In February, GCI CEO Ron Duncan disclosed a separate cable tear near Deering, a small community on Kotzebue Sound, that could not be repaired until summer because thick ice blocked access to the break site. Duncan said the company expected repair costs in the low single-million-dollar range for that incident alone.
The accumulating failures have hurt GCI's business. Duncan said GCI ended 2025 with 151,200 cable broadband subscribers, down 3 percent from the year prior, with the December Aleutian fiber break among the factors slowing customer recovery.
