Nome, Alaska– Nome’s coast will get a little more crowded this summer, but it’s not dredging or your standard drilling that will add to the offshore activity.
“We’re not drilling for something, we’re drilling a path for something,” explained Kristina Woolston.
Woolston is Vice President of External Affairs for Quintillion, the company that is promising to bring high speed internet to western Alaska by 2017.
Quintillion has been working onshore since March, laying the fiber optic cable that will help deliver that internet to Nome’s more than 3,000 residents.
Woolston said the offshore portion of the project will happen sooner than expected.
“We actually are going to start a little bit early here in Nome than what we had thought because we have a vessel available and we also have some great open water,” Woolston said.
The onshore cable will connect to the subsea cable just a few miles east of downtown Nome. Woolston said Quiltillion chose that portion of the shoreline since it was free of gold dredging leases.
Quintillion will begin work laying subsea fiber optic cable off Nome’s coast the first week of July.
