HIGHLIGHTS: FUNDING SEEN FOR BROADBAND EXPANSION ON TOP OF INVESTMENTS BY STATE’S TELECOM OPERATORS. PERMITTING FOR NEW PROJECTS MAINTENANCE SEEN AS CHALLENGES, ALONG WITH WORKFORCE. NEW FIBER AND MICROWAVE WILL STIMULATE RESOURCE PROJECTS. MODERATOR: CHRISTINE O’CONNOR, CEO, Alaska Telecom Association PANEL: n MICHAEL BURKE, CEO, Matanuska Telecom Association n HEATHER CAVANAUGH, VP External Affairs, Alaska Communications n HEATHER HANDYSIDE, Chief Communications Officer, GCI n KELLY WILLIAMS, CEO, OTZ Telephone Cooperative KEY POINTS: n Microwave in Northwest will aid resource exploration n $2 billion invested prior to federal infrastructure act n Workforce, permitting are key challenges DISCUSSION: Christine O’Connor: I’m sure you’re all aware that broadband is not everywhere, and we have some real deficits and connectivity problems in Alaska, and that was in 2010. This is changing quickly. We fast forward to 2023. This was through a lot of company investment. ATM’s member companies have invested about $2 billion in capital since 2017. We’ve gotten a lot of federal grants and we plowed that into building network. There has been a lot of build-out and the bulk of this has happened even before the federal infrastructure bill funding hit. Kelly Williams: At OTZ Telephone, we serve Kotzebue in the Northwest Arctic Borough and 10 villages across 40,000 square miles. We are the local telephone company and the cell company for that region. We are building fiber to connect places, but our biggest challenge is getting Internet at a competitive price from the more urban areas of Alaska. We’re building a microwave network from Kotzebue to the Dalton Highway. This will bring our pricing down, and speeds up for our customers. There are strategic reasons we went with microwave. That long haul to the Dalton that gives us access to competitive fiber. We will have communications towers about every 30 miles. We’re getting communications out where a lot of natural resources are, which with fiber probably wouldn’t happen. Heather Handyside: GCI is Alaska’s largest telecom provider. About 97 percent of Alaskans live in our service area. We have six major fiber projects we’re working on that are partially federally funded and partially private. The value of those is $267 million. We’ll be completing them over the next two to three years with more coming. This is in addition to $80 million in wireless investment in 2024. Our Aleutians fiber project is an 800-mile subsea fiber connecting six communities. We turned on service in Unalaska at the end of last year and we’re on track to turn on King Cove and Sand Point at the end of this year. We’ll be following with other communities in the coming year. This is important for the maritime and fisheries industries. They were struggling with payroll, cyber security, and supply chain issues when they had slow download and upload speeds. Now they’re on par with the rest of the nation. Michael Burke: Matanuska Telecom Association serves an area of about 10,000 square miles. We have fiber in Fairbanks and a couple of years ago we completed the first fiber connection down the Alcan Highway through Canada. Now we connect to networks throughout Canada as well as the Lower 48. From a resource development standpoint, this opens opportunities. There are companies in Canada that do business in Alaska. This is a path for them to provide connectivity directly rather than having to go down to the Lower 48 and then back up again. Heather Cavanaugh: We are working on our Alaska FiberOptic Project with Doyon Ltd., Calista Corporation, and the Tanana Chiefs Conference. We’re building fiber across the Doyon and Calista regions that will start in Fairbanks, go up the Yukon and then down to Holy Cross. It will go overland to the Kuskokwim. We’ll have fiber in the Doyon region by the end of 2025 and in the Calista region by the end of 2026. Heather Handyside: A challenge for us is being strategic about building. These investments need to be maintained. We have to make sure we have the workforce and the maintenance dollars for every tower and earth station and for all the upgrades that are going to be needed for networks. Michael Burke: Workforce is a challenge, but another critical area are the easements and permits that are going to be required. The infrastructure act wants these projects done within five years. It may take five years to just get the permits. BROADBAND’S ROLE IN ALASKA’S RESOURCES ALASKA RESOURCE REVIEW WINTER 2024 32
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