Communications technology such as telephone cable and microwave channels has brought Alaska seconds away from the lower 48. More recently, that's been pared to milliseconds thanks to fiber optic cables that now snake along the North Pacific seafloor from Whittier, Alaska, to the Pacific Northwest.
With service over several cables begun in the spring of 1999, Pacific Detroit-Allison's branch in Anchorage, Alaska, was called on to install a modem and highly automated standby generator plant in the fiber optic transmission station being completed in Whittier by Alaska Northstar Communications, a subsidiary of WCI Cable, Inc.
The facility draws 208 V, three-phase power from the Chugach Electrical Association powerplant in Whittier. But any interruption to the supply will automatically trigger two Kohler model 80ROZJ 100 kVA generator sets that also can be monitored and controlled over telephone lines from Anchorage.
Rated at 120/208 V, three-phase, and 60 Hz, the Kohler equipment incorporates John Deere 6059T four-cycle turbocharged diesel engines with six in-line cylinders. The 5.9 L engines displacement engines deliver 150 hp maximum power at the rated speed of 1800 rpm. The engines utilize a manually operated priming pump and incorporate both primary and secondary fuel filters. The engines were built at Deere's Saran, France, facility and combined with the Kohler generators in the U.S. PDDA represents Kohler in Alaska and the Russian Far East.
The gateway to the village of Whittier is vintage Alaska - an ancient string of railroad flat cars haul autos, trucks and busses through two, long, lightless tunnels and by the massive Portage Glacier from Alaska's Seward Highway to the village that straggles along a bay off Prince William Sound.
Whittier was founded during World War II to receive and dispense fuel. The rusting hulks in an extensive tank farm still stand near the foot of the mountains in Chugach National Park. The most prominent structure in town, however, is an anachronistic and towering apartment building - reported to hold the entire population of the village when winter descends.
However, among first sights when one emerges from the final tunnel are two buildings that represent modern technology - fiber optics cable terminals being completed to service cables that run to Juneau, Valdez, and 2000 miles to Oregon and Washington.
Fiber optics involves the transmission of laser signals along glass fibers at the speed of light. In the case of the ANC/WCIC cables from Whittier, communications equipment connected to the fibers enables signals to be transmitted at 10 billion bits per second. These 10 billion bits per second will encompass voice, data, and Internet traffic, at a rate equivalent to 128,000 simultaneous telephone calls.
In some respects, the companies putting up the facilities are competitors. On one side of the railroad tracks on the upper side of town, a facility is being installed by General Communications, Inc. (GCI). GCI will service submarine cables laid to Valdez, Juneau and Seattle. WCI Cable, Inc. (WCICI), will operate submarine cables laid to Valdez, Juneau and 2000 miles on the North Pacific sea bottom to Portland and Seattle via a "landing site" at Tillamook, Oregon.
Worldnet Communications, Inc. Alaska Fiber Star (AFS), WCI Cable, Inc., and Alaska Northstar Communications (ANC) are companion units in a family of communications companies that are owned by an Australian insurance and investment company, AMP Ltd.
An existing AFS "backbone" - terminology for the routing of a fiber optics system - emanates from Anchorage and runs to Fairbanks with ADMs (add/drop multiplexers) at Wasilla, Talkeetna, Cantwell, Healey, Clear, Nenana and Fairbanks. At these sites, traffic can be added to or dropped from the backbone system to provide communications access to local carriers. The fiber optic signals are also regenerated and passed on to the next site. Presently these stations are sited about every 60 miles.
From the Anchorage NOCC, the backbone runs south along the Alaska Railroad route to Whittier. A 100-mile submarine cable runs to Valdez.
Primary user terminals for the systems are termed "point of presences" (POP), such as units at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks where fiber optics carry supercomputer data. Jim Cole, a project engineer for WCICI in Anchorage, pointed out that only fiber optics systems are fast enough to service such superfast computing systems as Cray Computers like the one at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.
Construction of the concrete block building which houses the WCICI Whittier station was virtually complete fall. It was designed with environmental realities of Alaska in mind. The building was designed for Seismic Zone 4. Cole said that Whittier experiences "8 to 10 perceptible earthquakes a year." Keeping the often frozen soil stabilized beneath the structure, even this far south, requires exhaust vents to be mounted high on the structure.
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