Terrestrial Broadband Connects Rural Alaska

Terra-Southwest provides terrestrial broadband service for the first time from Anchorage to 65 remote rural communities in Bristol bay and Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

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by Megan Mazurek

Story Created: Jan 13, 2012 at 5:28 PM AKDT

Story Updated: Jan 13, 2012 at 5:28 PM AKDT

GCI's terrestrial broadband network connects Bethel and much of southwest Alaska by taking the region off satellite and bringing the rural Alaska up to speed.
Governor Sean Parnell hosted the first video conference between Juneau and Gene Peltola, the CEO and president of Bethel's Yukon-Kuskokwim health corporation.
The video conference utilized Terra-Southwest, an 88 million dollar terrestrial broadband "middle mile" project using federal broadband stimulus funding.
Terra-Southwest provides terrestrial broadband service for the first time from Anchorage to 65 remote rural communities in Bristol bay and Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
"The rural health care providers, the school districts, any large users make it possible," said Tina Pidgeon, a spokesperson with GCI. "Once you are able to create a business case, that makes that network make sense, then it brings the entirety of the network to the community, which is then able to use it as well."
GCI says satellite facilities will remain in place throughout southwest Alaska in the event of an outage on terra southwest.

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anon said on Saturday, Jan 14 at 9:10 PM

From satellite to terrestrial sounds like a step backwards.. can hardly wait for the cans and strings

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