A ship repairing damaged subsea communications cables near Sitka and Angoon made a port stop in Juneau on Thursday while in transit between the two operations.
The Cable Innovator arrived at the downtown Juneau cruise ship dock at about 1 a.m. and was scheduled to depart at about 4 p.m., said Second Officer David Smith, the duty officer for the 477-foot-long ship that specializes in undersea cable repairs. The ship arrived in Sitka on March 3 to repair an Alaska Communications cable system that was damaged Feb. 27, causing internet and phone service to be lost to many people throughout Southeast Alaska.
”We’re not entirely sure what potentially caused it,” he said, noting it could have been deliberate harm or an accident such as “a towing ship potentially dragging a wire.”
The Juneau stop was to allow the Cable Innovator to change marine pilots, dispose of waste and take care of other practical matters, Smith said.
The Cable Innovator is now heading toward Angoon for a second repair job, he said, noting typical repair projects, performed using a submersible vessel, generally take three to five days under normal circumstances.
The Angoon work is not related to the ACS outage, according to an email by Heather Cavanaugh, a spokesperson for the company.
Phones and websites for state and city government offices were knocked offline by the ACS outage, and numerous businesses were unable to process payment cards and conduct other online activity. ACS restored most internet and telephone service to Southeast customers within about three days of the outage using temporary equipment and providers.
The outage to ACS, whose carriers include AT&T, is part of a wider disruption of telecom services in Southeast Alaska. A network outage for GCI customers in Sitka is scheduled to start Thursday and continue until March 21 for repairs unrelated to the damaged ACS cable system.
“Internet services will be unavailable, and mobile services will be limited to voice calls and text-only messages,” Megan Webb, senior director of GCI’s corporate communications, stated in a message to the Daily Sitka Sentinel on Wednesday. “We anticipate the repairs to be complete by March 21, and we will notify you when the work is done. Customers will automatically receive credits for a full month of plan fees for affected services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding as we carry out this essential maintenance.”
Communications service to Sitka residents is being provided via Starlink terminals being loaned to the community by the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.
Both the Cable Innovator and tribes’ Starlink terminals played a role during a similar outage caused by a cable break Aug. 29, 2024, that disrupted GCI’s internet and phone service in Sitka. Those repairs began Sept. 8 and finished Sept 16.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
