“Our Internet usage is doubling every year,” Pelletier said. “This cable will afford duplicity access to end users.”

For the common user, this means room to grow. To heavy users of data, it means security. Alaska ranks as No. 1 in terms of Internet usage, and No. 2 in PC ownership, among the nation, according to some statistics.

ACS announced in October 2007 that it planned to invest in a 1,864-mile, four-strand fiber optic cable that would offer service for 25 years, a move that comes at a time when offering more bandwidth is the key to success.

The ACS fiber optic cable will begin at a point near Main Street in Homer and land in Florence, Ore.

“This will offer service for users that choose to diversify,” Pelletier said. “One of the most significant value propositions is ease of mind. That's a big case for many different types of users. This is being built with their uses in mind.”

She won't say who these clients may be, but alluded to those who transmit a lot of data, such as oil companies, the military and communications carriers that offer residential and commercial service in the Lower 48.

“Very large businesses that have rooftops throughout the world, including Alaska,” she said. “Ease of mind that if something should happen...they will have it covered.”

While the cable project decision wasn't Pelletier's alone, before the company could pursue such an endeavor it needed to reassure its customer base and make some money.

“When I came to the company (in the fall of 2003) we had a lot to do,” she said. “We had to find growth revenues. We were $530 million in debt. Now we're down to $430 million of debt. Basically there had to be a financial game plan. There were many moving parts that had to be clear so that all the parts could fall in line.”

ACS sold off its phone directory for $100 million and bolstered revenue with sales growth in the wireless sector.

“This is a sizeable investment,” she said. “You don't see many other industries other than the oil companies investing $100 million in a project.”

ACS signed an agreement with Tyco Telecommunications to lay the undersea cable, which is scheduled to come online by the end of the year.

Liane Pelletier, president and CEO of ACS, explains the company's reasons for investing in the $95 million fiber optics project, scheduled for completion at the end of this year. Photo/Rob Stapleton/AJOC

The fiber optics inside the undersea cable are as thin as a strand of hair, and as strong as steel. ACS's cable will have four strands, in pairs, that will be capable of transmitting 64 10-gigabit wavelengths on each of the fiber pairs for a total potential bandwidth of nearly 2.6 terabits - all at the speed of light.

Pelletier gets the concept and knows what Alaska needs.

“I started studying this before I came here,” she said. “And our teams have been studying this for some time. It was a long time in the hatching.”

Project manager Steve Gebert is all about the logistics of this project.

“We have carefully studied the area where we will lay the cable,” Gebert said. “It will be buried under the seafloor 1.2 meters (nearly 4 feet) from a spot that will avoid the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.”

The cable will be buried in non-typical fishing areas, and will come back onto land in Nikiski to avoid anchoring areas that might disturb the cable, Gebert said. Once on the Kenai, there will be two fiber optic cables that will carry all the traffic for the Kenai Peninsula back to Anchorage.

The cable will then be pared back to one cable, when it goes back undersea near downtown Homer.

“There will be some construction here in Anchorage near our offices, but most of the facilities are in place on the Kenai Peninsula,” Gebert said.

Gebert, a former military logistics planner, is confident in the timeline and the project, and especially in the results.

“Bandwidth use has exploded,” he said. “This will provide a different path to and from Alaska.”

Gebert said the undersea cable will also have a bridging “Y” unit that will allow future connections to Southeast Alaska fiber cables as they come online. While the cable will require a total of 25 repeaters to move the data, the cable between Anchorage and the Kenai is short, and does not need it.

With both land and undersea elements, this project ensures another growth path for ACS, Pelletier said.

“This will secure both great connections for future growth, on the land side and on the wet side too,” she said.