The cable will connect the cities of Anchorage, Juneau and Seattle via a subsea route. Subsea and terrestrial connections will extend the fiber optic cable to Fairbanks via Whittier and Valdez. When Alaska United is completed in late 1998, it will deliver a minimum of 32,256 simultaneous clear channel voice or data circuits at transmission speeds of 2.5 billion bits per second. As demand increases, capacity can be quadrupled to support a minimum of 129,024 simultaneous clear channel voice or data circuits at speeds of 10 billion bits per second. Currently, the only fiber optic cable connecting Alaska with the contiguous United States is nearing its capacity limit of 6,048 simultaneous voice or data circuits at transmission speeds of 420 million bits per second.
Fiber optics is the preferred method of carrying voice, video or data communications.
It allows for optimization of transmission equipment because of its lack of delay commonly found in satellite connections. Its superior information carrying capacity enables the deployment of new, bandwidth hungry applications such as faster Internet, ISDN and video conferencing. Initial discussions about an undersea cable began almost two years ago when GCI began the process of planning for new fiber optic capacity for Alaska. These discussions led to a desktop study of a potential undersea cable route. TSS is the world's only fully-integrated supplier of undersea systems and has installed more than 150,000 miles of undersea cable.