The plant in Murmansk starts the production of optical fiber for the "Polar Express" project

It would seem that the recent "modest" news on the opening of the first Russian fiber optic plant in Murmansk, upon closer examination it is extremely significant for our country. After all, it is this enterprise that will produce the cable required for the implementation of the Polar Express project.

We are talking about a submarine communication line of six pairs of optical fibers with a bandwidth of up to 104 Tb / s. It begins in the village of Teriberka in the Murmansk region and, with calls to all ports on the Arctic coast, stretches to Vladivostok. The total length is 12 km, the implementation period is 650.



It should be noted that the importance of this project lies not only in the fact that the inhabitants of the Arctic region will finally receive an accessible Internet. Digital infrastructure is not just the Internet in our gadgets, but also the management of enterprises, ports, as well as navigation along the Northern Sea Route. Given that access to the network in this region is provided by the American satellite operator Iridium, the creation of a domestic fiber-optic backbone is a matter of national security.

The ambitious project will be implemented by order of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation at the expense of public funds. At the same time, two "digital streams" were initially announced. The second line was planned to be built by the operator "MegaFon". It received the name "Arctic Connect" and could be extended to Finland and China and even the west coast of the United States. However, the project ran into difficulties, and the company refused to implement it.

As for the "Polar Express", its laying will be an extremely difficult task, since no one has ever built underwater lines of such length in the Arctic conditions before. However, in recent years, we are not used to doing the "impossible" to the surprise of the whole world.

In addition, in June it became known that the Rosatom corporation was joining the project, which significantly increases its chances of successful implementation.

Regarding the plant in Murmansk, which was created specifically for the "Polar Express" and will produce up to 3000 km of cable per year, it will not remain without work even after the project is completed. Indeed, according to preliminary estimates, in the next 10 years, more than 400 thousand km of fiber-optic cable will have to be replaced in Russia.