Expanding technology in the Arctic: rural residents benefit from continued build out.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: TELECOM & TECHNOLOGY

Students in the village of Noorvik will soon get a chance to explore the great cathedrals in Europe, the walls of Macchu Pichu, or the volcanoes of Hawaii in high-resolution detail without stepping out of their classroom, thanks to the expansion of Alaska telecom GCI's rural network.

Virtual field trips are only one of many benefits of access to high-speed Internet, which is now reaching into some of the most remote parts of the state. Noorvik, a predominantly Inupiat village of about 650, is located north of the Arctic Circle and hundreds of miles from the Alaska road system.

The push to get broadband to rural Alaska was stirred by federal stimulus funding in 2010. GCI broke ground on a network that would bring cutting-edge technology and communications to thousands of people in some of the most remote parts of Alaska, above and below the Arctic Circle.

Since then, the Terrestrial for Every Rural Region in Alaska (TERRA) network has brought high-speed, low-latency broadband to dozens of villages, servicing more than forty-three thousand residents. In July, the company announced it was expanding to another ten villages in the Norton Sound and Kotzebue regions, as well as Noatak and Red Dog Mine. The TERRA network is a hybrid of fiber-optic and microwave technologies.

Big Risk Pays Off

Creating TERRA was a gamble for GCI, says Lewis Schnaper, vice president of GCI Business, but one that the company celebrates.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"We've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in networking rural Alaska that no one was willing to build," Schnaper says. "It was a big business risk. And I'm glad we did it. TERRA is a really exciting project. It's changed the data landscape and it's changed the quality of life in rural Alaska."

At the end of 2016, the villages of Buckland, Kiana, Noorvik, Selawik, Koyuk, Elim, Golovin, White Mountain, Stebbins, and St. Michael will be connected to TERRA. That will give residents access to high-quality video conferencing, which will improve health and educational opportunities in the region, GCI officials say.

"GCI has brought high-speed Internet to some of the most remote locations on Earth," Greg Chapados, executive vice present and COO of GCI says in a news release announcing the expansion. "We've seen how much a community can benefit from the improved medical care, improved education, and improved economic opportunities that accompany access to broadband. We're truly connecting Alaskans to the rest of the...