The landing point will be south of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS), with plans in development for the backhaul network to run to Olympia connecting to the I-‐5 corridor.
“On behalf of the Quinault Indian Nation, we are fully committed to providing new opportunities to the technology industry, our growing and thriving Nation, and the people of the State of Washington. We appreciate our project development partners and government alliances for their efforts and collaboration thus far and look forward to building on those relationships toward an even brighter future,” said Fawn Sharp, president of Quinault Indian Nation.
The first stages of project development includes the design and permitting for the cable landing station, as well as the near-shore marine survey requirements. In addition, there are also plans to connect the CLS with a new carrier class backhaul route to the I--‐5 Corridor, offering customers enhanced interconnection opportunities.
Assured Communications Advisors International (ACA), a provider of ICT strategies, subsea cabling and assured network development, will continue to act as strategic advisor to the QIN and lead project development efforts to create the cable landing station. Additionally, ACA has been closely involved with bringing the cable landing station opportunity to QIN and the State of Washington.
In relation to this, Quintillion Subsea Operations, an Anchorage Alaska-based company that built and is operating a fibre-optic system in northern Alaska, has signed a Letter of Intent with the QIN to become their first customer in the new Washington CLS.
“Quintillion is very pleased with the prospect of being the first client in the first CLS to be built in Washington state in two decades,” said Michael McHale, chief revenue officer, Quintillion. “We envision this as the new high value, low latency landing for Quintillion’s Phase 2 transpacific subsea cable, crossing the northern Pacific and interconnecting with our Alaska subsea fibre cable.”
The Quintillion project is in development stage and subject to board approval. Phase 2 is due to be RFS for December 2021 and will deliver 100Tbps of capacity between the US and Asia. McHale says the company is in discussions with several global strategic partners regarding other Asia landings, as co‐owners and/or anchor tenants on Quintillion’s owned and operated open cable system.
