By Bob Munoz • Gavin Tully

Isle au Haut, a small Island off the coast of Maine, is home to approximately 75 year-round residents and around 250 in the summer. It’s small, it’s tight-knit, it’s quaint—in fact, around half of the island’s 100-sq. mi. land mass is part of Acadia National Park. It has a one-room schoolhouse (with currently seven students) and is only accessible from the U.S. mainland via a 45-min. ferry ride.

Until recently, it also completely lacked access to broadband internet. It took a village, and more, to get connected.

A Hometown Challenge

Recognizing that high-speed internet is necessary to remain a viable year-round community, the town formed a broadband committee in 2016. The goal was to find a way to bring universal fiber-to-the-home broadband to the island, replacing a microwave link and DSL service that left most of the island “under-” or “unserved,” as defined by the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The legislation deems an “unserved” location as one with no broadband service at all, or with internet service offering speeds below 25/3 Mbps. It defines an “underserved” location as one without broadband service offering speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps.

The previous internet service relied on a microwave tower located close to the town center, and performance was impacted by rain, snow, or fog—all common realities on Isle au Haut. From the microwave tower, the signal was distributed by copper DSL lines, through which the signal significantly deteriorated over distance, leaving only a trickle of service at the furthest points.

The impact was severe, especially for those not living in the center of town. One small business owner who lives at the far end of the island reported that it took 10 min. to upload one new picture to her website. As for the town’s seven students, most did not have internet access at home, significantly hampering assignments, projects and research. In an age of telecommuting, a lack of reliable internet makes it hard for a place like Isle au Haut to attract serious long-term residents and young people to stay and help the community thrive.

To remedy this situation, the Isle au Haut select board appointed committee members, all volunteers. A select-person who is a full-time resident provided the primary link to the town government for the committee throughout the project. Altogether, volunteers invested more than 4,000 hr. to achieve their mission of bringing broadband to the isle.

The committee determined that a 10-km subsea fiber-optic cable connecting to the mainland via Stonington on Deer Isle would be the ideal solution, as they sought to build a future-proof system while avoiding large microwave towers that would disrupt natural vistas near Acadia National Park.

Funding

Funding for this project came in the form of a $1.2 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the state of Maine, as part of a larger $28 million grant being administered by the Maine Connectivity Authority to support broadband expansion into underserved, especially rural, communities.

Building the Team

Axiom Technologies was brought on to spearhead the project, having designed and constructed more than 100 access points that connect more than 2,500 sq. mi. across rural Maine.

“Like municipal power and introduction of telecommunications before it, access to high-speed internet is a transformational project for Isle au Haut,” said Mark Ouellette, president and CEO of Axiom.

“Broadband is a critical link for sustainable communities. It can support local businesses, attract year-round residents, encourage remote workers to settle on the island, and enhance the cultural and economic life of the whole community.”

Ouellette commissioned Pioneer Consulting to provide key advice and connect the project to pivotal resources. Pioneer Consulting Director of Marine Services Bob Munoz took the lead, with assistance from Managing Partner Gavin Tully.

 

 

Planning the Route

Generally, cable routes span hundreds, even thousands of miles. Sophisticated—and expensive—surveying equipment is deployed to map the seafloor and design a cable route.

In this case, both the challenges and solutions were much more home brewed. While surveying the site, Munoz referenced the planning and engineering of a resident, Parker Waite, who, as an independent diver, personally swam and surveyed the seabed in 1983 before installing the island’s first power cable. As a local scallop diver, Waite knew the seabed like the back of his hand. His knowledge of the seabed allowed for the power cable to be installed along the rugged seabed profile, where it has provided uninterrupted service for the last 42 years. Fortunately, Waite’s maps and cable routing notes were preserved by the Isle Au Haut Electric Power Co. Waite was present at Stonington to witness the completion of the fiber-optic cable installation.

Cable Sourcing

The entire process of sourcing cable took about two years from start to finish. With no experience purchasing subsea cable or managing such a project, Isle au Haut Broadband Committee members initially picked up their phones and cold called suppliers. Since the project was small in terms of distance, many companies did not even respond to inquiries, as their normal orders often spanned entire oceans. The one company initially willing to work with Isle au Haut was based in Europe, and the cost of shipping and importing the cable alone was prohibitive.

Once Pioneer Consulting was brought on board, acquiring the cable was much more within reach. Pioneer Consulting has extensive prior experience working with SubCom, which manufactures submarine cable not far from Isle au Haut, in Newington, New Hampshire. SubCom offered its state-of-the-art SL17 special purpose application (SPA) fiber-optic cable to ensure long-term survivability, and the cable was made more affordable in part because SubCom allowed the islanders to arrange transportation of the cable in a 40-ft., open-top shipping container.

“Connecting communities is what we’re all about,” said David Coughlan, CEO of SubCom. “And as a New England company, it’s a special opportunity to take part in connecting a place we know and love so well.”

Laying the Cable

Various permits were required for the project, both from the state of Maine and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The timeline for approving submitted permits was approximately one year. Preparation of the submissions took approximately six months.

The USACE permit was received on November 21, 2023. The permit window for the marine installation was limited between November 8 and March 14, 2024, due to considerations for essential fish habitat.

There were two primary challenges when it came to the laying the cable: the cable laying equipment and the weather.

The use of a large ocean-going cable ship was not viable logistically or financially for the project, so Isle au Haut hired a local barge that was fitted with cable-laying equipment and an experienced installation team from GAEAquatics, a company based in Middleburg, Florida. The weather proved more formidable. The cable needed to be laid during a very narrow weather window: between high season for tourism and fishing and the onset of the frigid, forbidding Maine winter. Although November 8, 2024 was initially selected for installation, high winds of up to 30 kt. caused a two-day delay.

On November 10, 2024, the installation process began around 4:30 a.m. with a cable landing at Isle au Haut. The cable lay took 3 hr., and the Stonington cable end landed around 11:30 a.m. without a hitch, connecting the submarine cable between Isle au Haut and Stonington on Deer Isle. The two ends of the submarine fiber-optic cable were later spliced to terrestrial cables, providing fiber-optic connectivity between Isle au Haut and the worldwide web.

 

 

The Little Island that Could

Now, for the first time, Isle au Haut’s town store boasts a “WiFi” sign on its door. Life is changing for the town; more connectivity means more year-round residents, and longer summers for seasonal residents who can now work from their island homes. For Isle au Haut, the future is now, thanks to a big effort from a small group of people.

 

Bob Munoz is the director of marine services at Pioneer Consulting. 

 

 

 

 

Gavin Tully is a managing partner at Pioneer Consulting.