This should improve Alaska's latency to the US since it is a shorter path than going around and through Canada and many hops in between.
You are completely wrong. There are no direct connections between alaska and Canada. There are currently 3 fiber connections connecting Anchorage to the Lower 48. 2 of them are owned by GCI 1 is owned by AT&T. ACS (the telco laying this fiber) currently uses AT&T's fiber.
All Alaska traffic runs through Washington or Oregon before going anywhere else in the world including Canada. So the new fiber should really have no noticable differences in latency.
I don't know the exact figures but I'm pretty sure the current fiber is less than 2 or 3% utilized right now anyway. Theres no current need for this fiber as far as Alaska as a whole is concerned, but the Telco ACS will now have their own backhaul to the lower 48 without having to use AT&T's fiber.
