Affordable Broadband Comes North.

• Author: SWAGEL, WILL
• Position: Statistical Data Included

Picture a garden hose. The amount and speed of water that can pass through is determined in part by the hose's size. Want to move massive amounts of water faster? Use a wider hose.

Well, in terms of Alaska's telecommunications capacity-that is, the ability to move electronic data-the state's "hose" has now been upgraded from the wimpy one-inch diameter garden variety to the big honker that hangs on the side of Fire Department Pumper #1, capable of a deluge.

Twin undersea fiber optic cables now link Alaska to the Lower 48 and the world, joining a third fiber optic cable in place for some years. Fiber optic pipe runs through the Railbelt and to Juneau. Alaska business people should prepare for the flood of new possibilities as these much wider pipes allow larger and larger packets of information to move faster and faster.

Are you ready for videoconferencing? How about telemedicine advances such as doctors in Anchorage and Seattle interpreting data-rich X-ray images projected in real time from the Bush? How about setting up a secure Local Area Network so that all two dozen company employees can work together as easily from home as from the office?

Strap on your seat belt--welcome to the world of broadband technology. If you haven't experienced this technology already, be prepared--these advances are coming soon to a location near you.

Give My Regards to Broadband

It's not that high-speed telecommunications were previously unavailable in Alaska. Businesses from giants such as Arco to mid-size bank offices in Sitka have utilized so-called broadband applications for years because of the size of their organizations or the complexity of their data.

They bought what are commonly called T-1, T-2 or T-3 lines, although many other permutations are possible. This premium service allowed business people with data-heavy needs, such as graphic designers, to send huge computer files in minutes, instead of hours.

But these firms had to rent their T-1s etc. from their local telephone exchange at $2,000 or more per month, way out of reach for many businesses. Businesses had been able to purchase a "fractional" high-speed line--a piece of the pipe--for less, but costs were still high.

Enter Digital Subscriber Line service and the coaxial cable modem.

For prices as low as $40 per month, Alaskans can now have a 256 kilobit-per-second modem installed in their home, office or store. Even greater capacity--up to 1 megabit per second and higher--is available for under $200 per month. And this is before real competition in the market starts driving prices down, and features and services up.

Cable Modems

"There has been a lot of research done in Alaska," says David Morris, spokesman for General Communications Inc., "and it appears that for homes, you have twice the amount of Internet access (and twice the number of computers) as in the Lower 48. Anybody...