Quintillion has acquired Arctic Fibre, the Toronto, Canada based company, intending to provide a polar routed fibre between Europe and Japan. On Quintillion’s webpage (Arctic Fibre Acquired by Quintillion Networks), they point at a new article from Alaska Native News.
Arctic Fibre had planned a new route from the UK to Japan via the Arctic Ocean. This route leaves the UK, passes across the North Atlantic, past the southern point of Greenland and through the North West Passage. The cable would then skirt the top of the Canadian mainland, and pass around Alaska, before heading south to Tokyo. They had worked hard to gain buy-in for the cable from communities along the Canadian north coast.
The two companies are already partners, with Quintillion providing the Alaskan portion of the route. Quintillion had started the 1850km cable route from Prudhoe Bay to Nome, with spurs ashore for Barrow, Wainwright, Point Hope, and Kotzebue (working towards Nome and the south.) Quintillion will also lay an additional overland route from Prudhoe Bay links to Fairbanks. Here it links with existing cable networks to reach the rest of the USA. This course follows the pipeline next to the Dalton Highway, regularly featured in Ice Road Truckers. The Alaskan cable phase is expected to be ready for service in 2017. The next step would take the cable to Tokyo, Japan. I suspect that this will generate revenue quickest, as trans-Pacific links are at a premium. Bringing revenue will help fund the final phase to the UK.
Quintillion will now build, own and operate the network. While Cooper Investment Partners is the majority investor in Quintillion, the shareholders of Arctic Fibre now have an ownership stake in Quintillion. Michael Cunningham, CEO of Arctic Fibre, will join the Quintillion board.