Advances in Rural Telecom: increasing speed and capacity.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: Telecom & Technology

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Most of Alaska's residents live in relatively urban areas with big-city amenities such as chain stores, restaurants, and high-speed Internet. The majority of the state's communities are off the road system and lack those conveniences, but that is starting to change.

In the past few years, four major companies, AT&T, GCI, Alaska Communications, and Verizon, in partnership with local telecoms, have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into infrastructure to bring remote communities from Ketchikan to Barrow into the 21st century.

Barrow Upgrades

For instance, the 4,200 residents of Barrow have only been able to get 2G wireless service--a standard for signal strength introduced in 1999--but will be upgraded to 4G by the end of the summer, says Jens Laipenieks, director of operations for the Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative (ASTAC). Bigger improvements are on the horizon.

"We have been preparing our network for the new fiber landings for the past few years and are increasing our network investments in 2016," he says, noting ASTAC has more than thirty years of operations experience on the North Slope and was building networks in northern Alaska before the advent of the Internet.

"Our modernization efforts include upgrades to our voice switches to support VoIP [and] improved local access equipment [electronics] as well as installing fiber optic cabling to the premise. We are also in the second year of significant upgrades [to] our wireless network across the Slope with a goal to have all ASTAC markets upgraded to 4G by year end," Laipenieks says.

The new 4G service will deliver data speeds similar to what subscribers in urban areas receive today.

ASTAC works in partnership with AT&T, which has a network covering 365 million people in the Lower 48 and Alaska.

"In early 2015, we expanded upon [the partnership] with an agreement to enhance our wireless service across the North Slope," Laipenieks says. "By joining forces and efficiently manage spectrum and backhaul capacity, we are able to greatly improve our subscribers' user experience on the Slope and while roaming."

Carrier Investments

Over the last three years, AT&T has invested nearly $175 million to enhance its networks in Alaska, says Chris Brown, AT&T director of network services for Alaska.

"Over the last three years we've invested a good amount of money expanding our wireless network in various places around the state," he says. Most communities have...