Remote-site communications: distance doesn't matter anymore; Alaska communities small as dots become wired.

LAST FRONTIER IN COMMUNICATIONS

Allakaket, Shageluk, Kipnuk, Tenakee and Naukati ... mere dots on the more than 656,000 square miles of Alaska's landscape.

Stony River, Mentasta Lake, Nightmute, Upper Kalskag and Tyonek ... small numbers adding to Alaska's almost 627,000 residents.

Over the past two years, Alaska's Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA) has provided funding as an incentive for service providers to connect the most rural of Alaska. The program, Rural Alaska Broadband Internet Access Grant Program, has availed the likes of GCI Communication Corp. (GCI), United Utilities Inc. (UUI), Yukon Telephone Co. (Yukon), and AT&T Alascom with funding to provide broadband Internet service to Alaska communities lacking even local dial-up Internet service.

The Grant Program came into being two years ago after the federal legislature appropriated funds to spur economic development in rural areas. The state's regulatory commission's (RCA) is intended to establish facilities and services that create long-term availability of affordable broadband services to rural communities.

OPPORTUNITY

The program's initiative is to provide economic, employment and educational opportunities to some of the state's most isolated and economically depressed areas. Most of the eligible communities are not connected to a road system and depend upon telecommunications to provide basic education, public health and public services.

The high cost of providing broadband service to rural Alaskans with the greatest need has, prior to the grant program, had limited access to the Web. It is a technical challenge and economically infeasible for private-sector telecommunication carriers and cable operators to expand into areas of harsh climate, sparse population and northern location.

RCA's official Web site outlines the goal of the program: "facilitate long-term affordable broadband Internet services in rural Alaska communities where these services do not currently exist. To accomplish this, the RCA will provide to telecommunication carriers and cable operators (through sub-recipient grants), up to 75 percent of the funding they require for projects that would:

(1) "Expand broadband Internet service into rural Alaska communities currently without local dial-up Internet access or broadband service.

(2) "Continue to provide broadband Internet service to the residents of those communities at affordable rates that are comparable to rates paid by residents of Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau for at least two mandatory years after completion of the initial expansion project."

Over the past two years, the commission has availed nearly $9 million in two rounds of grants to GCI, UUI, Yukon and AT&T Alascom to reach out to the states bucolic, isolated and far-flung landscape.

Communities included in the program previously lacked local dial-up Internet service, and now have or are soon to have access to broadband Internet service.

Round 1 Communities:

GCI--Allakaket, Crooked Creek, Dot Lake, Grayling, Holy Cross, Mentasta Lake, Red Devil, Shageluk, Sleetmute, Stony River, Tetlin

UUI--Chefornak, Eek, Kipnuk, Kongiganak, Kwigillingok, Lower Kalskag, Newtok, Nightmute, Tuntutuliak, Tununak, Upper Kalskag

Yukon--Tyonek

Round 2 Communities:

AT&T Alascom--Edna Bay, Port Protection, Tenakee Springs, Naukati, Port Alexander

Yukon--Manley Hot Springs

"There are remaining grant funds, so there is a possibility of future grant funding," says Rich Gazaway, spokesperson for RCA. Gazaway further explains the funding, "Our agency (in conjunction with DCCED) is administering a federal grant from the USDA, so the investment dollars are provided by the federal government and the grantees."

With the exception of AT&T Alascom, which is an Alaska affiliate of AT&T Inc., all grantees are Alaska companies. Alascom, the first long-distance telephone company in Alaska, was purchased by AT&T in 1995. Alascom and GCI have been the two primary long-distance telephone service providers in Alaska since GCI's founding in 1979. United Utilities Inc. began in 1971 and now serves 61 Alaska communities and is headquartered in Anchorage. Yukon Telephone Co Inc. started service in Tanana in 1960. The company is headquartered in Wasilla.

TELEMEDICINE REACHES REMOTE ALASKA

It may sound clich,, but providing health care to citizens living in the farthest reaches of Alaska is not for the faint of heart. For villages and communities in Alaska's frontier served only by boat or small airplanes, telemedicine health services can dramatically raise the quality and accessibility of health care and significantly reduce costs. Doctors and specialist in medical service can assist patients in the state's most remote clinics, using high-speed data service over satellite links. Providing that connection at adequate speeds is a challenge.

General Communication Inc. (GCI), Alaska's largest provider of voice, video and data communications services, is on the cutting-edge of providing broadband tele-health services across the state.

In Alaska, there is a big "however" in the equation. Delivering broadband service via geo-synchronous satellites is not without a special set of challenges. From one end of the link to the other, with a satellite in between, is a 23,000 mile round trip. This introduces serious latency.

"The goal was to alleviate the application delay when transferring files and running applications over satellite circuits," says Mike Journey, tele-health systems manager at GCI. Add to the equation that health care communication must be secure or encrypted to comply with HIPAA requirements.

GCI teamed up with Structured Communications, a GCI consultant and Juniper elite partner to test and evaluate the Juniper WX application acceleration platform to improve satellite link performance. The result is technology that accelerates TCP-based applications performance, quality of service (QoS), and IPsec encryption.

Customers immediately witnessed performance improvements. An example of the dramatic increase in the wide-area network (WAN) capacity, Journey set up an FTP transfer between a clinic in the Aleutian Islands and GCI's data center in Anchorage. Without the Juniper TCP acceleration enabled, the transfer took nearly seven minutes to send a 10MB file. With the Juniper WX platform turned on the transfer took just seconds.

The ability to offer TCP and application acceleration has been successful for GCI. "IP accelerators give better utilization for bandwidth and a better look and feel for applications," says Journey. Ease of management is critical, especially to customers at the Arctic Circle and at temperatures reaching 50 below zero. He notes the WX CMS Interface is incredibly easy to use.

MORE FEATURES FOR ALASKANS

Over a year ago in this magazine, we said "push to talk" was coming to Alaska. Cellular One from Dobson Cellular Systems rolled out Push 2 Talk Service (P2T) in Alaska last month.

Push 2 Talk offers walkie-talkie-type service. That is, customers can communicate directly without the dialing and ringing experience of a traditional wireless call.

"We are extremely excited to bring this feature to Alaska first," says Thomas K. Roberts, chief marketing officer for Cellular One. "Push 2 Talk will revolutionize the way Alaskans communicate and give our customers exclusive access to another dynamic wireless innovation."

As Dobson expands the service to the rest of their service area, which is the third largest GSM carrier in the country, customers can use the feature throughout the country. Alaska, Cellular One P2T customers will find Push-to-Talk currently works in Hawaii and throughout the Lower 48 states. P2T calls are made directly to one person or to a group of people via a special handset that also functions as a traditional voice and data device. Another plus of the service: using the P2T feature does not add to call minutes. Cellular One claims to be Alaska's largest wireless provider and, thus, P2T provides more coverage for users.

Frank Franzese, Cellular One's senior vice president of sales, says, "Push-to-Talk doesn't replace traditional voice calls, it gives business and consumers an alternate way to stay in contact with co-workers, friends and family."

For businesses with a campus or large plant facilities, equipping personnel with P2T phones enables instant communications for all employees, replacing pagers and public address systems while maintaining personal and private communications. In rural settings, a job foreman using P2T can immediately give his or her works instructions on site or at a remote location.

On a family level, mom can check on the kids or dad can immediately update the family as to when he will be home.

Push 2 Talk compatible handsets are available at Cellular One offices. Note that not all handsets are compatible with Push-to-Talk.

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