(Kodiak) - The Kodiak Kenai Fiber Link, LLC (KKFL) - a partnership formed to plan, finance and construct a fiber optic cable from the mainland will conduct a meeting in Anchorage this Friday - August 29th. The KKFL is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Old Harbor Native Corporation.

Representative Dan Ogg (R-Kodiak) will be in attendance as one of the primary supporters of such an endeavor. "I have been working in the background on this enterprise for quite some time," indicated Ogg. "I've gotten tremendous support from Speaker of the House Pete Kott's office and have alerted the Kenai delegation as to the potential this enterprise brings to the table," Ogg further stated.

The Kodiak Island Borough and the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce have promoted this project for a long time. Pat Carlson, the borough manager has been a driving force to set up this meeting. "It is time that Kodiak has this technology in place to advance in the areas of telemedicine, telecommunications, fisheries research, higher learning and a host of economic opportunities and technology based products that are driven by fiber optics," said Carlson.

Jim Janes and Ik Icard of the Kodiak Kenai Fiber Link, LLC will present an updated business plan and a desktop survey on Friday. They will also be discussing what steps will be necessary to finance and construct this project. On their list will be the financing of an ocean bottom survey under the proposed path for the fiber optic cable. This will lead to the construction financing that could take several forms, i.e., federal and state grants and/or various bonding mechanisms.

The meeting is expected to also draw Kenai representation from its borough and cities along with state legislators from that area. The proposed line would come from Anchorage into Kenai, on to Homer and then continue traversing the ocean bottom to Kodiak. "Once this backbone is in place, the state has a tremendous opportunity to eventually run this cable on up to the King Salmon area and all the way out the Aleutian chain to Unalaska/Dutch Harbor and Adak," stated Representative Ogg.

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