Norway is to lay a fibreoptic cable under the sea north of the Arctic Circle to provide the 1700 residents of the remote town of Longyearbyen, on the island of Sptisbergen, with VDSL (very high bit DSL).
According to Norwegian news site Aftenposten, the Norwegian Space Centre is behind the project, which will cost $US40 million and bring 100 TV channels and internet access at a much faster rate than ADSL, the standard residential DSL variety.
Norwegian telco Telenor Svalbard has been testing VDSL equipment and seeks to use it to replace satellite links from the Svalbard archipelago (of which Spitsbergen is the main island and Longyearbyen the main settlement) to the mainland.
VDSL could also be said to stand for very expensive DSL, as it eclipses ADSL in cost as well as speed, but the Aftenposten article says the satellite links are even more expensive to maintain.
The cable will be 3000km long.