Quintillion Names Interim CEO

Quintillion, the Anchorage-based company constructing an 1800 km, subsea fiber optic/broadband network, with landing points in six key Alaska markets located on the Arctic/Northern Slope, has named George M Tronsrue III as its interim CEO, effective immediately.

The Quintillion Subsea Cable System should be connected in the Q4, 2017 timeframe to a currently operational Quintillion terrestrial fiber optic network capable of transporting data and internet traffic to the lower 48 states and international gateways.

Tronsrue has decades of sales and operational experience in wireless, fiber optic and telecom infrastructure in over 70 major U.S. markets. That includes executive leadership roles at Monet Mobile Networks, the first commercial 3 G data company in the world and with leading public and private Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLEC’s) including XO/Nextlink Communications and espire/American Communications Services, Inc, Teleport Communication Group and MFS Communications.

Tronsrue comes to Quintillion after seven years as President of MFSI Government Group, a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business he founded in 2010. MFSI specializes in providing classified mission critical national security and warfighter support services and solutions to the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and other federal agencies.

Adam Murphy, managing director of Cooper Investment Partners, the lead investor in the privately funded Quintillion project, stated: “We are excited about bringing on Mr. Tronsrue to lead us to completion of Phase I this summer, delivering on the promise of bringing high speed internet capacity to these Alaskan Arctic communities by Q4, 2017.”

Quintillion CEO Elizabeth Pierce resigned last week, citing personal reasons.

The cable-laying vessel C/V Ile de Batz and several support vessels are currently installing the remaining cable off the northern coast of Alaska. Installation will be completed later this summer and the system is scheduled to go live by December 1, 2017. Phase I (Alaska) includes development of a subsea trunk line from Prudhoe Bay to Nome with branching lines to Deadhorse, Utqiagvik (Barrow), Wainwright, Pt. Hope, Kotzebue and Nome. In addition, new fiber has been installed between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay that will connect these northern Alaska communities to the Pacific Northwest.

Once Phase I in Alaska is complete this year, the Quintillion Subsea Cable System plans to connect Asia to Western Europe via the southern portion of the Northwest Passage through the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic, with potential connections into Northern Canada.