By Bengt O. Hallberg

The photonics boom crashed in 2000, a quiet battle for the Stockholm archipelago began. Read the story behind the submarine fiber-optic cable to Ornö.

The vacation is over

The Swedish summer vacation season has ended. Meanwhile, severe and extensive wildfires are raging in France and Spain. Saab's water-dropping firefighting aircraft, operated on behalf of the Swedish government, are participating in the firefighting efforts. The heat in southern Europe has been unbearable for the local populations.

August is vacation season there. Sweden has become a popular tourist destination. Already now, there has been a sharp increase in the number of non-Nordic visitors compared to previous years. The climate is mild, the days are long, and the breathtaking natural scenery is accessible to all under the right of public access. The cities are clean and beautiful, and there are excellent transportation links by land and sea.

Swedes are well-educated and speak English well in addition to their native language. They’re also easygoing, and they enjoy a pleasant lifestyle, as one tourist said in a TV news interview. This benefits the tourism industry, as hotels, entertainment venues, guided tours, and lodging for hikers in the Swedish mountains usually have fewer bookings during this time.

The archipelagos along the Swedish coast were previously unknown to foreign visitors, except among sailors. You don't need to travel to the Swedish mountains to experience unique natural beauty. The Stockholm archipelago, with its 30,000 islands and excellent boat connections from central Stockholm, is attracting more foreign tourists than ever before.

I wrote about it in two blog posts this summer: one on July 7 and the other on July 21. The latter post deals with the Baltic Sea and the long-standing and ongoing conflict with Russia involving the Nordic countries and, now, the EU as well.

The first blog post is much more enjoyable. The narrative is woven together through a sailing trip from Stockholm to Möja in the central archipelago and concludes on Ornö, the largest island in the southern archipelago. These were taken from and translated into English from my first book, which was published in Swedish in 2021.

With that, I’m returning to my profession and my blogs on photonics. This one is about the behind-the-scenes technology, in which Ornö plays a key role.

The Cable to Ornö

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I returned to Sweden in 2000 after working for Ericsson Inc. in Manhattan, New York City. The telecom industry's photonics sector had entered a dark period. Unfortunately, Ericsson began slowing down its fiber optic operations in 1999. Many people who had dedicated their lives to building it up found themselves unemployed.

This wasn’t limited to the Ericsson Group. The same thing happened in the EU and North America, where many scientists, engineers, and technicians were laid off. The former head of technology at Ericsson Telecom was also affected. He had led an effort to consolidate all fiber-optic operations into a single fiber-optics division.

Along with two other prominent figures in the industry, he contacted me in an attempt to preserve Sweden's expertise in photonics. We hoped that a new management team at Ericsson would recognize the mistake, fix the problem, and put the fiber optic business back on track that we could support.

I lived in my house on Ornö and commuted to the mainland for business. Telecommunications on Ornö and in the archipelago as a whole were poor. In the spring of 2001, I did some online research. I discovered that Haninge Municipality, which governs Ornö, was working on a project to provide the island's school with broadband internet. The project was budgeted at several million Swedish crowns.

Much to my disappointment, I read that a decision regarding a microwave link to Utö would soon be made. This link would relay the signal to the mainland for implementation. At the same time, I learned from my industry contacts that Stokab, a company affiliated with the Stockholm Municipality, would be laying an underwater fiber-optic cable in the archipelago—but not to Ornö.

I wrote a memo to the Technical Operations Manager at Haninge Municipality, suggesting that they should save the money and invest in a submarine cable connection instead. A quick decision was made, and the project was halted.

I then convinced Stokab’s management of this and coordinated with the relevant municipal officials. Haninge Municipality lacked expertise in fiber optics. I took on the role of expert pro bono in the group formed to address the issue. On November 3, 2002, the cable-laying vessel arrived at the cove near the school in the center of Ornö and connectied it.

Meanwhile, on Ornö, we were preparing to expand the last mile service for the local population. Government grants were available for such projects and were essential for carrying out the initiative. A privately held corporation with about thirty shareholders was formed for this purpose.

Stokab, which was affiliated with the City of Stockholm, had a unique business concept at the time. It involved offering “dark fiber.” This meant that whoever leased capacity on the cable was responsible for providing their own transmitter and receiver equipment.

The schoolchildren on Ornö were likely among the first in Sweden to have a true, high-capacity fiber-optic internet connection. Unfortunately, the government withdrew its promised funding for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology and allocated the funds to Telia, a state-controlled company, to expand its services to subscribers. This decision was likely made at a high political level by the government or a related body at the time. The limited liability company was dissolved.

Telia never built a fiber-optic network. Instead, they upgraded the existing network using the ADSL technique. Two decades later, the remaining Ornö subscribers finally received fiber-optic connections through a private initiative.

A tragic event occurred at the end of 2004 that made me reflect on my situation and my career in photonics. I’ll tell you about it in my next blog post.

Next blog

The next blog post will be published on Tuesday, August 18, 2026.

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