Weather Delays GCI Work by Two Days

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Category: News

Created on Tuesday, 04 March 2025 15:49

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SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer

Strong headwinds are slowing down the Cable Innovator repair ship, delaying the start of its work on a fiberoptic cable serving Sitka from Friday, March 7, to Sunday, March 9, GCI Communications said Monday afternoon.

The up to 10 days of emergency maintenance work on the undersea cable serving Sitka means the community “will be operating at a reduced level of service.” The new dates for the work and reduced service for GCI customers is March 9-19.

Megan Webb, GCI senior director of communications, said the maintenance work will be conducted on the line between Angoon and Sitka, about 10 miles from Angoon.

Josh Edge, GCI corporate communications manager, told the Sentinel that the need for maintenance work was identified when GCI technical teams monitoring the network flagged an issue recently indicating some damage within the cable.

“The cause is currently unknown and we’re unlikely to have more information until the ship, Cable Innovator, is on site,” Edge said. He said the ship is the same one that repaired a broken cable in Salisbury Sound that left Sitka without service August 29-Sept. 16.

He said the issue isn't currently affecting service in Sitka, but the segment of fiber must be taken offline while work is under way to ensure the safety of the Cable Innovator crew.

“We are doing this work as soon as possible to prevent an unexpected outage like what happened last fall,” Edge said.

The company said it will compensate customers for the inconvenience of reduced connectivity. Internet customers, mobile customers (including FastPhone Prepaid), and Yukon TV customers will receive 100% credit for one month of service.

In an email or text to customers, GCI advised customers to download favorite shows, music and entertainment before March 9, since expected service reductions will mean home internet service will be available in a very limited capacity and will support only very low bandwidth activities such as email.

GCI said how each service would be affected.

Internet: Restricted to basic functions such as checking email, which requires very low bandwidth.

Mobile: Limited to voice calls and text-only messages (no pictures or videos).

Home phone (landline): An initial, brief interruption while GCI transitions to backup communications. GCI also warned of delays in audio transmissions.

Mobile data and Yukon TV services will remain down until the cable is repaired.

In response to another question, Edge said the company hasn't determined the cause of the cable break in August and September.