GCI is buying the only fiber link connecting Alaska's Arctic coast to the state

GCI, Alaska's largest telecom company, is buying the only wired connection between the state's Arctic coast and the rest of Alaska — a roughly 1,700-mile fiber-optic system that every other carrier in the region depends on.

The $310 million deal would hand GCI control of Quintillion's network, which runs about 1,200 miles undersea from Nome to Prudhoe Bay and another 500 miles overland to Fairbanks. Quintillion calls itself the first and only company to lay fiber in the U.S. Arctic, and it operates as a wholesaler — it doesn't sell to consumers, it sells capacity to the telecom providers who do. That includes the connections that carry internet to rural schools and clinics along the route. Buying it would put Alaska's dominant carrier in charge of the pipe its competitors have to rent.

The purchase, signed in April, still needs federal sign-off from the FCC before it can close, which GCI expects by the end of the year. GCI has already fronted Quintillion $160 million while the review plays out.

The network at the center of the deal has proven fragile. The undersea cable — the Arctic stretch of it — has been severed twice by ice scouring the seafloor, in 2023 and again in 2025. In response, Quintillion built an overland backup: roughly 171 miles of fiber it calls the Land Bridge Project, running to Utqiagvik. Finishing that link is one of the conditions of the sale.

Quintillion's president, Mac McHale, framed the sale as the network passing into steady hands, saying "GCI brings Alaska expertise, long-term commitment, and the operational scale needed to carry this network forward." What the deal doesn't yet spell out is what it will mean for the people and providers who rely on the route: GCI's filings say nothing about future rates, jobs or service guarantees along the line.