As part of our mission to deliver world class connectivity across Alaska’s heartland, ACS has recently expanded its network to create a high-speed, highly resilient fiber ring connecting Alaska’s largest cities and military bases.

In 2006, ACS acquired fiber between Anchorage to Fairbanks, along the Alaska Railroad, for high-speed connectivity to many of Alaska’s major cities and military bases. To expand the reach of our fiber system and enhance its survivability, ACS developed a geographically-separate fiber route between Anchorage to Fairbanks along the Richardson Highway.

The Richardson Highway route complements ACS’ existing fiber along the Alaska Railroad, forming a ring that provides maximum network reliability, capacity and security for our Enterprise customers.

This fiber ring is but one part of ACS’ overall strategy of providing multiple, secure routes for our customers’ data. Another part includes ACS’ unique, diverse undersea fiber optic submarine cables between Alaska and the Lower 48 – AKORN and Northstar.

Managing all of ACS’s assets are dual Network Operations Control Centers in both Anchorage and the Lower 48.



While the Alaska Railroad route runs entirely inland from Anchorage to Fairbanks, the new fiber goes from Anchorage overland to Whittier, travels via submarine cable to Valdez, and treks north through Delta Junction, North Pole on to Fairbanks, following the Richardson Highway. This route is often more than 100 miles distant from the Alaska Railroad fiber and connects traffic to the Lower 48 while completely avoiding the Anchorage bowl.

Historically, in the challenging topography north of Valdez, other providers have suffered repeated failures with as many as six cable cuts in 2006 alone. To provide the reliability our customers demand, ACS leverages fiber installed by Copper Valley Telephone, buried as much as 60 feet underground. Over time, this more demanding construction approach has delivered superior operating results, with only one cut in 10 years of operation.

The Richardson Highway route accesses Fort Wainwright, Eielson AFB and Fort Greeley, joining Fort Richardson and Elmendorf AFB, already connected via the Alaska Railway fiber. Managed as one fiber ring, these cables will link most military and population centers in Central and South Central Alaska.

The fiber ring is nearly 900 miles in length and encloses an area of more than 30,000 square miles, greater than the combined area of Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

The cable has the initial capacity of two OC-192s for a total of 20 GB available bandwidth and can be expanded ten-fold. The ring’s network architecture is based on MPLS and can be rerouted in less than 50 milliseconds if needed. In case of emergency, your service can be restored before you know there was a problem.

ACS’ MPLS network has nodes in more than 30 Alaska markets plus Portland, OR and Seattle, WA connected via AKORN and Northstar. The ACS MPLS network, combined with Metro Ethernet service in most Alaska cities, allows ACS to provide reliable, secure, and consistent service across town, across the state, and into the global network.

Let us work with you to design a solution that exceeds your current performance. Call today or email us at business.leads@acsalaska.com.