A damaged fiber optic cable has left GCI customers in the Southeast Alaska towns of Sitka and Angoon with severely reduced Internet, cable and cell service services since Valentine's Day, company spokespeople said Tuesday.
The damaged cable line may be fixed by Saturday, Feb. 20, GCI vice president David Morris said, but that could change.
Service interruptions were first spotted at 6 p.m. on Feb. 7. The fiber optic cable was "clearly compromised," about seven miles southwest of Angoon in Chatham Strait, at a depth of 1,400 feet, according to Morris.
The cause of the damage hasn't been pinpointed yet. "There's any number of things that it could be," Morris said.
While the line wasn't severed, some of the fiber optics were damaged. The company transferred Internet and cable to the undamaged lines, but those continued to degrade, Morris said.
Meanwhile, a specialized fiber optic cable repair ship was dispatched from Victoria, British Columbia.
The company spends $1.7 million a year to keep the ship docked in Victoria, "just waiting for issues to occur," Morris said. Damages to fiber optic cable lines are uncommon, but are expensive, generally coming in around $1 million.
The ship arrived at the site on Valentine's Day, Morris said, and after inspection, the company cut the cable in order to make repairs, leaving Sitka and Angoon with greatly reduced Internet, wireless and cable capabilities.
Some limited services are available, as GCI transferred its services to satellite and microwave. That reduces what customers can access. "Basically you're going from an 8-lane highway down to a one-lane highway," Morris said. "There's only so much it can handle."
Services were prioritized, Morris said, so the hospital and public safety agencies will be less affected. Local schools will have lessened Internet, according to a release sent out last week.
"If you're talking about Netflix streaming and Hulu, that's going to be way down on the priority (list)," Morris said.
Although the cause hasn't been determined, Morris said that "most of the time when we have an outage it's 'external aggression,' and that's another term for 'fishing activity' or 'an anchor that goes through there.'"
The customers most affected are 1,800 households that subscribe to cable TV, Morris said. The company is working to repair the fiber optic cable and put it back on the ocean floor, Morris said.
A full list of services affected was outlined in a release:
- Multimedia wireless texting (embedded photos or video in a text) will have diminished performance.
- Wireless web browsing will be diminished but basic email access will be available.
- Cable modem browsing will be diminished.
- Customers will only be able to access a limited number of GCI TV channels.
- Streaming video services and online software updates will be significantly impaired or unavailable.