Highway 6 cable install nearly complete

After delays caused by rocky soil conditions, contractors from Astound Broadband expect to finish laying a section of fiberoptic cable along the path of Highway 6 by the end of July.

That will complete a terrestrial backhaul route between Pacific City and Hillsboro ahead of the scheduled fall arrival of a transpacific, submarine cable originating in Singapore.

Contractors began working to install the cable along Highway 6 between last year, and found their way impeded by an overabundance of rocks, according to Matthew Updenkelder from Astound.

“We’ll be humming along, the bore path will be perfect, we’re right in our desired depth and then all of a sudden the bore head starts to shoot up,” Updenkelder said.

Some of the rocks are the size of cars and the cable either needed to go through or around them, with the former option requiring specialized boring equipment, which runs into more maintenance issues, racking up downtime. The equipment change and slower pace of drilling pushed the expected completion date for the project from quarter one of this year to the end of July.

Early in the year, crews primarily laid the section of cable between South Fork Road and Hillsboro, which was scheduled for completion last week, according to Updenkelder. Focus shifted to the section between Tillamook and South Fork Road in the spring.

Updenkelder said that he expected the cable to be laid by the end of July, at which point they will begin working on secondary projects, including the addition of gigabyte internet connections to five communities along Highway 6 in conjunction with Tillamook Peoples’ Utility District (TPUD).

Plans to add cell phone towers along the route are also progressing, with tie points for two macro towers and five micro towers included along Highway 6. Verizon is currently working on lease agreements with landowners, including Tillamook County, for tower sites.

The submarine portion of the cable is still being laid and Updenkelder said that he expects the ship placing it to arrive offshore at some point in the fall.

The new cable will join at least four other transpacific cables that land in Pacific City, two of which are operated by Astound. Astound’s previous two cables, like the forthcoming one, stretch from the transpacific landing sites to the Portland area, with one traversing the Salmonberry Pass and another taking a southern route through Grand Ronde before turning north through Albany.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the primary customer for the new cable, although it will account for less than 10% of its capacity.

In addition to adding gigabyte internet to the communities on Highway 6, Updenkelder said that the cable had connection points located every 1,000 feet in south Tillamook County and that Astound was working with TPUD to add additional connections.