The University of Hawai‘i hopes to bring a new $140 million interisland undersea fiber internet network online by the end of the year.
The Hawaiian Islands Fiber Link (HIFL) project would connect the six main Hawaiian islands via 416 miles of fiber optic cable in order to update the state’s aging and vulnerable broadband infrastructure.
Garret Yoshimi, UH’s vice president of information technology, told Aloha State Daily that there are currently three undersea fiber networks linking the islands, all owned by Hawaiian Telcom. However, all three networks are old: two are more than 25 years old, and the third more than 15 years old.
With the planned lifespan of subsea fiber cables typically set at 25 years — and with the youngest network not well maintained, Yoshimi said — the state’s infrastructure is due for an update. In 2019, Yoshimi said, a damaged cable resulted in the entirety of Kaua‘i losing internet and telephone service for nearly a day.
“People weren’t able to make credit card transactions,” Yoshimi said. “And that happens when all the traffic is concentrated on one cable.”
UH has been planning HIFL for years, with the project first announced in Jan. 2024. Yoshimi said the university became involved following an influx of federal funds for broadband improvement projects in 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic created an increased need for reliable networks so people could work and attend school remotely.
As such, Yoshimi said the university was ideally placed to receive about $109 million in federal funds to develop HIFL. The remainder of the estimated $140 million budget would come from private partners.
“Commercial providers just didn’t see a good return on investment for a project like this,” Yoshimi said, explaining that HIFL on its own likely won’t bring noticeable improvements to internet service, but will improve network resilience throughout the state.
Yoshimi said laying the cable itself should be a relatively quick process, and said that UH is still trying to get the network operational by the end of the year, a deadline set back in 2024.
“It’s a very tight schedule,” Yoshimi admitted. “There’s still a lot more permitting work we need to do before the cables can go into the water.”
The cable laying itself will be carried out by Georgia-based subsea cable company Ocean Networks Inc. (ONI), which will form an LLC with the state of Hawai‘i to take on continued ownership and maintenance of the cable.
Once the network is completed, Yoshimi said telecommunication companies will connect to the cable landings on each island — which are mostly located on UH property — to complete “last mile” connections with end users.
While Yoshimi reiterated that internet users likely won’t see an improvement in service once HIFL is online, he added that the project, in conjunction with a separate UH project called the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, will help expand networks into underserved rural areas where internet access is unreliable.
A draft environmental assessment for the project was published on Sunday, with the report anticipating that the project will have no significant impact. However, the assessment’s publication triggers a 30-day public comment period, allowing members of the public to review the report and submit comments until March 10. Comments can be submitted to info@hifl.llc.
A final environmental assessment for the project will be published later in the year.
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