Rural Alaska Beaufort Sea ice cuts fiber-optic cable, limiting internet for about 20,000 residents of Northwest Alaska through summer By Zachariah Hughes Published: February 4, 2025 ...

A broken fiber optic cable buried far below the Beaufort Sea ice, north of Oliktok Point has brought internet service for a wide swath of Arctic communities to dial up speed or a complete halt.

On March 24, Arctic sea ice extent peaked at 5.607 million square miles (14.52 million square kilometers), a new record low winter maximum extent in the satellite record that started in 1979.

There was a record loss of sea ice cover over the Arctic in 2007, he said. “In some areas of the Arctic Ocean the multiyear ice rebounded, but in the Beaufort Sea we did not see that kind of multiyear ...