A combination of grant and loan money equaling $88 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will allow 65 communities in Alaska to undergo a major expansion of broadband Internet.
United Utilities, Inc. (UUI), an Anchorage-based telecommunications company, will provide middle mile broadband service to the communities through the Terrestrial Broadband in Southwestern Alaska project.
Middle mile connections are used for getting broadband to underserved or rural regions. Oftentimes, existing Internet operators cannot run their networks at fast speeds because of slow middle mile connections. Slow connections exist when the middle mile is linked to network access points miles away from urban areas.
The project will require the construction and operation of submarine fiber, buried and pole-line terrestrial fiber, and microwave facilities.
The 65 communities undergoing the expansion include Bethel and Dillingham, as well as small towns in the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta and Bristol Bay regions.
There are 9,089 households, 748 businesses, two hospitals, 63 village clinics and 72 schools in 11 districts benefiting from the project.
All endpoints in the project will have identical pricing, and capacity increases will be available.
The $88 million grant and loan to the telecommunications company is part of a total $310 million in stimulus funds awarded by the Agriculture Department.
The awards were announced Monday, and amount to the largest round of government funding for broadband since Congress included $7.2 billion for high-speed networks and adoption programs in last year’s stimulus bill.
U.S. Sen. Mark Begich said in a press release the project will improve a number of things for rural Alaskans
“Rural Alaskans appreciate the attention that the Recovery Act is giving to their needs,” Sen. Begich said. “The second major broadband expansion project provided by the Recovery Act in as many months, this project will improve telemedicine, improve distance learning, create needed jobs and allow Alaska small businesses to grow and expand.”
The project is intended to bring jobs and economic opportunities to rural communities, poor neighborhoods and bring some of the rural Alaska communities that are falling behind up to speed in the information age.
The money for the $88,140,760 project also will pay for the network infrastructure needed to deliver telemedicine services, offer online classes and provide other applications that require a lot of bandwidth.
At least 80 jobs in the service area are estimated to be created from the project, with 25 more coming from manufacture and transportation of the equipment required.
UUI has secured a commitment from parent company GCI to purchase middle mile capacity for its existing voice and data traffic. According to the project’s application, this commitment makes the project financially feasible.
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Quelle/Source: Kodiak Daily Mirror, 27.01.2010
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