Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) announced that it has won the contract for the Eastern Arctic Undersea Fiber Optic Network (EAUFON), a project that calls for 1,200 km of fiber optic submarine cable.

A press release said that the contract, funded by the Kativik Regional Government, (KRG), an oversight body, calls for connecting five communities in northern Québec that have been primarily dependent on satellite links. The goal is to provide a reliable, affordable and secure high-speed broadband Internet connectivity.

The EAUFON system, based on two fiber pairs and designed to offer a speed of at least 10 Tbps on each fiber pair, will be extendable in the future to connect other communities in northern Canada. The ASN system will integrate the latest versions of its subsea products, including high bandwidth repeaters, OADM Branching Units, SoftNode Submarine Line Terminal (SLTE), and modular duplicated Power Feed Equipment (PFE).

ASN President Alain Biston said that the company was honored to be selected by KRG. He noted that a key was ASN’s “previous experience in successfully installing advanced coherent submarine cable systems in the remote and harsh Arctic environment.”

ASN will manufacture the fiber optic submarine cable system at its facilities located in France and the U.K., and will deploy it using a purpose-built subsea cable ship. The system deployment will require adjusting to difficult weather conditions and complying with the regulatory, logistical, scheduling, and operational constraints associated with marine activities performed in the Hudson Bay. “This will be a real challenge, and ASN will draw upon its experience from four previous projects in the Arctic region to meet this new challenge,” the release said.

The EAUFON system is scheduled to be commissioned at the end of 2021. The Kativik Regional Government encompasses most of the Nunavik Region of Quebec. Nunavik is the northern half of the Nord-du-Quebec administrative region and encompasses all the territory above the 55th parallel (500,164 sq km).

Alcatel Submarine Networks, part of Nokia, notes that it has installed more than 650,000 km of optical submarine systems, enough to circumnavigate the globe 15 times.