The U.S. Navy Region Hawaii and Hawaiian Telcom are promoting the completion of a joint project that will place the largest fiber optic cable ever installed in Hawaii beneath Pearl Harbor. Running underground, the cable creates a direct link between urban Honolulu and western Oahu.
During a press conference at Rainbow Bay Marina on Tuesday, Hawaiian Telcom President Su Shin said the project demonstrates how the company “continues to invest in closing the digital divide in the state of Hawaii, connecting all of our islands across the state. ensuring all residents have access to high-speed broadband, investing more than $1 billion to make it a reality.”
Almost all of the world’s Internet data, which plays an increasingly central role in modern life, travels over these cables. Internet access in Hawaii relies on a series of cables between islands, as well as cables across the ocean floor that connect to both Asia and North America.
In a statement, Governor Josh Green said: “Hawaii’s unique location in the middle of the Pacific makes reliable connectivity essential for everyone who lives and works here. “Additional fiber connectivity helps ensure access to essential services, public safety resources, healthcare, education and commerce.”
Chris Mommaerts, director of information and communications technology at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, said: “This not only helps with redundancy, diversity and resiliency in communication systems on the island of Oahu, but also Help the other islands through the inter-island link. The submarine cable (and) helps us connect to those cables that link the Pacific from the west coast of the United States continent to all of Asia.”
Both federal and local officials have been increasingly concerned about potential vulnerabilities in the cables. In January 2022, a massive underwater volcanic eruption and earthquake destroyed more than 100 miles of the undersea cable connecting Tonga to the outside world. This left the country completely offline for three days and the major outage continued for weeks.
But natural disasters aren’t the only potential threats worrying officials.
In April 2022, Hawaii-based Homeland Security Investigations agents said they “interrupted” an attempted cyberattack against an unnamed private company’s servers associated with an undersea cable after receiving a tip from their HSI counterparts on the mainland. . The agency said that “an international hacking group” was behind the attack, and “HSI agents and international law enforcement partners in multiple countries were able to make an arrest,” but did not provide additional details.
In May 2023, Palau officials said the Chinese research vessel Haiyang Dizhi Liuhao entered Palau territory without notifying local authorities and acted suspiciously when it approached an undersea cable. Palau Homeland Security Coordinator Jennifer Anson told Benar News that the ship “decelerated to approximately 1 to 2 knots as it passed over Palau’s fiber optic cable. She continued with questionable maneuvers, passing within about 45 nautical miles of Kayangel (the state and northernmost islands of Palau). Attempts by the Joint Operations Center to contact the ship via VHF radio were unsuccessful.”
In 2023, the governments of Japan, Australia and the United States said they would invest millions to shore up cables in Micronesia’s island chains. Increasing competition with China has led regional governments to pay more attention to the security of their cable infrastructure.
“The need for higher speed data transmission to support defense, government, commercial and residential demands is driving the expansion of fiber optic networks across the country,” U.S. Rep. Ed Case said in a news release. . “This historic project provides tremendous capability to support Hawaii’s growing strategic position in the Pacific region.”
Hawaii is home to the US Indo-Pacific Command and is the nerve center for all US military operations in the region. Military leaders have been working to shore up aging military infrastructure on Oahu and across the Pacific. That includes cyber infrastructure.
“This is an important project that has far-reaching community benefits,” said Col. Monica Gramling, deputy commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. “We are pleased to partner with the private sector to improve communications connectivity for Oahu residents and businesses and enable the Department of Defense to modernize our infrastructure.”
Mainland defense contractors have been flocking in and out of Hawaii in hopes of cashing in on the Pentagon’s plans to step up operations in the Pacific, which the military currently considers its top-priority theater of operations. But local businesses are also looking to benefit.
Chris Laine, CEO of Hawaiian Telcom Federal, said, “(Our company) has been around for quite some time. And now that we’re back in the (DoD) space, we’re going to partner with the Department of Defense, which is a great opportunity for all of us.”
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