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Environmental Research:
The Northern Fiber Optic Link
White Paper for the Research Community
High speed, broadband cable has changed the way the world shares information, does business, conducts research and delivers education. Nearly 40 percent of Alaska’s land area (equal to nearly ten percent of the land mass of the 48 contiguous states) – the entire western half and North Slope of the state – does not have reliable, high speed broadband connectivity. It is served instead by sporadic satellite service which is plagued by limited
capacity and frequent disruptions.
The Kodiak Kenai Cable Company (KKCC) will provide fiber optic cable service to these regions by constructing the Northern Fiber Optic Link (NFOL) which will extend the existing Kodiak Kenai Fiber Link system from Kodiak Island to the Aleutian Islands and Western Alaska with landing points at Unalaska (Dutch Harbor), Cold Bay, Naknek (King Salmon), Dillingham, Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue, Barrow, and Prudhoe Bay (Deadhorse).
The system will be operated as a neutral carriers’ carrier providing access and support to any user on an open and equal basis through national, statewide or local telecommunications providers.
Old Harbor Native Corporation and Ouzinkie Native Corporation formed the Kodiak Kenai Cable Company, LLC in 2001 to construct and operate the Kodiak Kenai Fiber Link System, which was placed in service January 2007 and currently connects the 60,000 people of the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak Island with Anchorage. The project was completed on time, within budget, and has operated without interruption in service since it was connected.
The Company operates as a “carriers’ carrier” offering high-speed, broadband capacity and services to local and long-distance exchange carriers for internet, telephone and other data and video services. KKCC is a socially and economically disadvantaged small business concern as defined under Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act (15 USC 637).
Proposed System Design and Architecture
The NFOL system will be a seamless fiber optic cable system with a design that is more than sufficient to meet the total current requirements of users and provide significant additional capacity to accommodate future demand.
When fully built out it will provide access for the first time to robust broadband capacity for 142 rural communities, 143 federally recognized Indian Tribes (25% of all Tribes in the US) and a total of 256 federal Tribal organizations (nearly 50% of all Tribal organizations in the US) thereby connecting the region’s indigenous peoples, hospitals, medical clinics, schools, remote university campuses, public safety offices, U.S. Coast Guard communications sites, commerce, industry and researchers with real-time telecommunications and internet services.
Figure 1: NFOL Network Configuration
The Northern Fiber Link will be configured as follows:
(1) Cable Length: 5,713 Km
(2) Trunk and Branch Configuration with eight branching units and seventeen segments with two optical fiber pairs on each segment.
(3) Ten Termination Cable Landing Stations (CLS); Eleventh station at Platinum, AK serves as a regeneration site to allow for Segment 10 to extend to Bethel without wet plant repeaters. BU4A with a fiber stub is included to service communities along the Yukon River as a future upgrade.
(4) Three Science Node Interfaces on trunk for servicing future ocean observatories (BU3, BU4 and BU6 as denoted on the map by the yellow triangles ).
(5) Initial Operating Capacity: 46 Wavelengths, each with 10 Gbps data rate, distributed across the ten termination cable landing stations (20-40 Gbps at each CLS).
(6) Full Operating Capacity: 96 Wavelengths per segment, each with 10 Gbps data rate, for total capacity of 1.92 Tbps among the entirety of the system network.
(7) Design Lifetime of System: 25 years
Indefeasible Right of Usage (IRUs) offered at the following transmission rates:
| OC-192 (full wavelength): | 10 Gbps |
| OC-48: | 2.5 Gbps |
| 1 GB Ethernet Line: | 1 Gbps |
| OC-12: | 625 Mbps |
| OC-3: | 155 Mbps |
| DS-3: | 45 Mbps |
Project Timeline
The NFOL System will be implemented in two phases. Phase 1 extends from Narrow Cape to Unalaska; Phase 2 extends from Unalaska to Prudhoe Bay. The current schedule for implementation of the NFOL is:
Phase 1 (Narrow Cape to Unalaska):
- Pre-build of Base Fiber Components Begins – December 2009/January 2010
- Marine Survey: May 2010 – September 2010
- Landing Site Construction: January 2010 – July 2010
- Fiber Optic Cable Installation: June 2010 – September 2010
- System Testing and Commissioning: September 2010 – November 2010
Phase 2 (Nome to Prudhoe Bay):
- Remaining Cable System Design/Manufacturing: January 2010 – April 2011
- Fiber Optic Cable Installation: May 2011 – September 2011
- System Testing and Commissioning: August 2011 – December 2011
KKCC is ready to begin this project immediately upon notification of authority to proceed. A comprehensive desktop study has been completed, system configuration is finalized, vendors have been identified, landing sites surveyed, archeological reviews are nearing completion and pre-permitting and permitting requirements with all state and federal regulators and stakeholders are underway. With timely notice of award to proceed by November of 2009, the entire project can be ready for operation by September of 2011.
Benefits for Research and Science
The Northern Fiber Link will provide real time remote sensing and other advanced capabilities for environmental research, drastically improving timelines and effectiveness of research measures conducted in relation to issues such as species migration and populations, potential epidemics such as bird-flu, climate and earthquake research and other populous affecting areas of study.
After conducting lengthy discussions with members of the scientific community, researchers and policy experts, and after review of similar projects and projected needs for the Arctic and Bering Seas, KKCC has undertaken, at its own cost, to include in the system backbone configuration three Science Node Interfaces for use in the future. Each Science Node Interface as shown in Figure 2 consists of a state-of-the-art four port branching unit and a co-conductor cable from a cable landing station to service the signal and power requirements of the future ocean observatories over cable link separate from the NFOL communication links. The data traffic from the observatories transported over this separate cable will then be multiplexed onto the NFOL network at the cable landing station for access by research teams involved with the supported science projects from any location around the world.
Figure 2: NFOL Science Node Interface
Figure 3: Priorities for Ocean and Sea Ice Observing Activities of the SEARCH Implementation Plan
Ref: Arctic Research of the United States, Vol. 21
The Chukchi Sea and Bering Straits are critical locations for understanding environmental impacts on global climatic change. Figure 3 provides US priorities of recommended locations to meet these important objectives as documented in the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) program.
KKCC has tailored the NFOL trunk configuration to support these critical objectives with the inclusion of the three Science Nodes. The Science Node interface at BU 6 will service the Barrow Observatory; BU 4 will service the Bering Straits/Diomede Observatory; and BU3 will service any future AOOS node to be located in the Bering Sea.
It should be noted that there is still time to engage additional members of the scientific and research community about the specific locations and needs of these or other BUs for future use.
Cost Savings to the Research Community
KKCC has included in its design for the NFOL system, at its own cost, the three additional Science Nodes at strategically positioned locations (BU’s 3, 4, 6) specifically for future use by the research community. The incremental cost to KKCC for this undertaking is an additional $1 million per BU, for a total extra cost to KKCC of $3 million. KKCC feels strongly it is in the public interest to assume this cost during the design and construction of the system so that researchers and scientists can benefit from this national asset long after the system’s construction is complete.
By designing and constructing the three scientific node interfaces now, not only is KKCC assuming the cost of this portion of the design and construction, it is also saving the public a considerable amount of money compared to trying to install a future cabled ocean observatory network by attempting to splice into the system. Our engineers at Tyco Telecommunications, based on their experience with other similar systems in challenging locations, estimate that if policy leaders decided after the fact to install each BU into the NFOL system as each ocean observatory is funded would cost approximately $10 million per BU. This extra cost would include the need to pre-secure contract time for marine vessels performing the work, the cost of the new Node and BU to be installed, the cost of travel time for the vessel to arrive on site, the time and labor involved with actually installing the new Node and BU, the cost of connecting the new Node and BU to shore based power for operations and support for the new observatory network, the cost of associated shore-based traffic equipment, the large cost of re-routing traffic of paying customers who have contractual rights and expectations of connectivity and service, among other unknown factors based on the design of the Node and BU at the time. Based on this feedback and data, the cost to the scientific community to install three BUs after the NFOL system is built could be as high as $30 million. However, given KKCC’s commitment to the scientific community to install these three BUs at our own cost, that money is now not necessary.
In addition to removing from the scientific community’s budget needs the cost of the BUs themselves, by constructing the entire 5700 km NFOL system, at an estimated cost of $430 million, the scientific community does not have to take any of this huge cost into account in its budget assumptions or projections because we are deploying the back-bone system through other funding sources. KKCC views this as a unique opportunity for a host of industries, government, consumer, education, health and research entities to gain access to a telecommunications resource that heretofore was not thought possible to build because of lack of funds.
In addition, the ability to provide specific locations with a variety of configuration designs, including a 1 GB Ethernet line, supports robust operations for real-time monitoring of large amounts of data and video. While satellite communications may allow for some remote monitoring of basic data, it cannot handle in a dedicated way the rapid expansion of live services, including high-quality video, at costs comparable to fiber cable. And because the NFOL system has been designed to be so large, robust and flexible, it can support future technology developments, data gathering and an expansion of services that none of us can envision right now. Those new services and technologies are likely to consumer ever increasing amount of bandwidth making future dependency on satellite as the main system of delivery suspect.
Use of the NFOL Cable System for Data Transports from Terrestrial Observatories
A number of US Agencies (to include NASA, NOAA, FAA, NPS and DOE) rely on the collection of atmospheric and weather data with ground stations located in rural Alaska. The potential for enhanced data transport from these sites over the broadband fiber based facilities of NFOL is readily apparent with a review of current collection sites throughout Alaska, as shown in Figures 4 and 5.
Figure 4: Location of NOAA-NWS First Order Weather Stations and Cooperative Observer Program Participants, and NOAA CRN Sites in Alaska
Ref: Arctic Research of the United States, Vol. 21
Figure 5: Location of Automated Weather Stations in Alaska
Ref: Arctic Research of the United States, Vol. 21
Supporting Basic Research Logistics
and data collection needs of the scientific and research communities, the system will also be used by national, state and local telecommunications service providers for the delivery of live video conferencing, landline and wireless telephone services, portable wireless device services, robust Internet services and television services at a more reasonable cost per unit of data use versus the cost of satellite. This means research and logistics coordinators responsible for the deployment of staff and researchers into the field can now provide more reliable, faster and robust telecommunications to the field staff and researchers in Western Alaska and across the North Slope. For anyone who has become reliant on having near real-time access to reliable services, including the ability to access files remotely in the cloud, transport, compile and compare data, engage in videoconferencing and on-line collaboration or even the use of basic telephone and Internet services in urban environments, it can frustrating to be in the field without access to these services. By installing the robust NFOL system those services will now be available to field staff at similar speeds and at similar costs compared to users in urban locations. This greatly enhances the ability for field staff and personnel to enhance their research and productivity in remote parts of Alaska to be covered by the NFOL system.
Next Steps
KKCC is actively moving forward with the proposed NFOL system. If the scientific community has ideas, input, suggestions or questions we are ready to engage or respond as appropriate. To submit a question, idea or suggestion please contact us as follows:
Kodiak Kenai Cable Company
2702 Denali Street, Suite 100
Anchorage, AK 99503
Direct: 907.278.6100
Fax: 907.222.2760
www.northernfiberlink.info
www.kkfl.info
For technical design questions, suggestions or inquiries please contact our technical review lead:
Dr. William Barattino
2 Cardinal Park Dr, Suite 202B
Leesburg, VA 20175
Work: (703) 771-6911
wbarattino@gbs1.com