Information superhighway getting closer for 65 villages

August 14th 9:34 pm | Margaret Bauman    

If you live in southwest Alaska, the information superhighway is coming closer and closer to your home, and likely to be part of your lifestyle by year's end 2012.

It's all about the middle mile phase of this $88 million GCI project right on schedule, says Krag Johnsen, director of rural broadband development for GCI.

Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in 2009, millions of dollars in federal funds have come to Alaska for broadband infrastructure.

In the case of GCI's TERRA-SW project (an acronym for "Terrestrial for Every Region of Rural Alaska") it's a combination of $44 million in grants and $44 million in loans, to bring a fiber optic and a high speed microwave network into 65 rural communities and deliver it into individual residences, businesses and other entities. In industry terms, this is called "middle mile" and "last mile."

The plan includes new fiber optic from Homer to Lake Iliamna, new fiber in Lake Iliamna connecting all the communities on the lake and new fiber up into Lake Clark to connect Port Alsworth. From Iguigig to Levelock, fiber optic cable has been buried along the land south of the Kvichak River to Levelock, from there the network becomes high-speed microwave, with point-to-point communications, Johnsen said.

Some 80 miles of fiber optic cable across Cook Inlet was completed in late July, via a subcontract to IT Marine, an international telecom firm based in Canada, which sent their vessel through the Panama Canal, then north to Homer to get the job done in a week.

That fiber optic needs to be connected at Williamsport to line going through the mountain pass to Pile Bay. Meanwhile over 200 of the 250 poles for hanging fiber from Willamsport to Pile Bay have been completed under the supervision of Peak Oilfield Services, Johnsen said.

Installation of 13 microwave towers is also underway, including nine in villages and four at remote sites. Towers are up and substantially complete at Levelock, Koliginik, New Stuyahok, Ekwok, and under construction at the Kanakank site in Dillingham, Manakotak, Platinum, Goodnews Bay and Naknek. All of them are scheduled to be completed by the end of August.

Marsh Creek is the contractor for the 4 challenging remote mountaintop microwave towers, with crews of 5 to 10 people at each site and a recent Chinook helicopter support to lift the communications shelters, power shelters and two fuel tanks to each remote mountaintop site.

"Once this middle mile project is completed, the last mile piece still needs to be built in communities and that is scheduled to start in 2012, Johnsen said. "In Dillingham we are working with the local phone company to get a partnering agreement where they may deliver some of the last mile Internet, and in many other communities new last mile wireless Internet will be built in 2012.

 

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Margaret Bauman can be reached at mbauman@alaskanewspapers.com, or by phone at 907-348-2438