Isle au Haut to lay high-speed internet cable - Penobscot Bay Press

ISLE AU HAUT—More than 40 years after an undersea electric cable connected Isle au Haut to the grid, an undersea fiber optic cable will connect it to the internet.

Weather permitting, the new cable will be installed by Islesboro Marine Enterprises on November 8.

The cable will snake along the same sub-sea path that local diver Parker Waite carefully plotted for Isle au Haut’s first and only electric cable in 1983.

Waite’s electric cable—which he calls “the extension cord”—was laid out in sections and spliced together over the course of weeks. By contrast, the entire seven-mile long fiber optic cable will be laid in one unbroken line in one day.

“Once we start, we have to go,” said Sue Foelix, a seasonal Isle au Haut resident and member of the island’s broadband committee.

Foelix and a small committee of volunteers spent the past seven years working to get Isle au Haut online. The island’s internet is currently supplied by a small microwave radio tower. Foelix said the connection is, at best, unreliable, and nonexistent a certain distance away from the tower.

Foelix said a reliable, high-speed internet connection opens the door to online education, remote work and telehealth visits for both seasonal and year-round residents.

“This is one of those projects that’s hard, but will benefit the next generation. Kind of like what Parker did with the power cable,” Foelix said.

When the project got off the ground in March 2022, Foelix said Waite—who spent three years mapping the ocean floor between Isle au Haut and Stonington— was one of the first people the committee contacted for advice.

Besides the actual installation of the cable, which will be handled by professionals and sub-sea experts, Foelix said the project has relied on volunteer labor. In the weeks leading up to the installation, Foelix said she and her fellow committee “were in Stonington with hammer drills putting up conduit.”

“It’s basically all hands on deck,” Foelix said. “When people get up and help us, it’s like the Little Engine That Could.”

The project is funded by $1.2 million in state and federal grants. The cable and on-land infrastructure are owned and maintained by the town of Isle au Haut. Machais-based internet provider Axiom Technologies will supply the broadband connection.

Moving lobster gear

The cable will stretch from Isle au Haut to the Mail Boat Wharf in Stonington. The Isle au Haut broadband committee asked lobstermen to move their traps out of the cable area by November 7.

Mike Dassatt, Stonington lobstermen and secretary of the Downeast Lobstermen’s Association, said there are very few lobster traps in the narrow cable area this time of year. “It’s really perfect timing,” Dassatt said.

If traps remain in the cable area and hinder the installation, Dassatt said standard procedure is to have Maine Marine Patrol move them out of the way.

“Normally, most of the guys will move their gear or will already have it out,” Dassatt said.

The smaller number of lobster traps is partially why undersea projects like the Isle au Haut fiber optic cable are limited to a four-month construction window between November and March. Foelix said the project was supposed to be completed during last year’s window, but problems with their marine contractor caused a year-long delay.

Laying the cable will take about 12 hours with a specially modified barge. Foelix said any sort of bad weather will delay the project till the next clear day.

When the cable is connected, Foelix said it will “make internet reliable and universal for everyone on the island.”