High-speed Internet on its way to rural areas

Several areas of Alaska currently without high-speed Internet access will soon be able to speedily surf, thanks to new stimulus funds.

Spacenet, a Virginia-based Internet provider, announced that it has received a $7.5 million grant from the Rural Utility Service under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to provide high-speed service to largely offline areas in Alaska and Hawaii. Spacenet's communications director, Jon Douglas, said the majority of it, $6.3 million, will go toward providing service for Alaska's rural areas.

Spacenet chief executive officer Andreas Georghiou said this will be done through satellite coverage which makes virtually all of the state's areas accessible. Coverage will be provided by the company's StarBand satellite Internet service.

"There are some areas in the country, particularly in the more remote areas, where it just hasn't been profitable to put down fiber optics. So there's been a real limitation there, but now satellites cover it," he said.

He said while there are already satellites providing Internet around the country, "only a handful" do so for Alaska. This money will help change that.

Douglas said the program will allow Spacenet to use existing satellites which currently cover around 98 percent of Alaska, creating an opportunity to provide service almost anywhere in the state.

"Anyone who couldn't get online in their homes before will now have that chance," he said.

He said this is very relevant to the Juneau area as it's surrounded by Native and rural homes that currently don't get Internet service through other means.

Georghiou added that the other way this program helps get the Internet to these areas is through the cost savings.

"We've served customers in Alaska for several years. We have customers around Juneau now, but it's been so expensive for them because of the installation costs," Georghiou said.

Douglas said the Rural Utility Service allows the government to subsidize installation and equipment fees so customers will not have to cover them. He said customers only need to cover the monthly $50 service fee.

Douglas said StarBand's services will exceed the high-speed requirements set by the Federal Communication Commission with download speeds of at least one Mbps and 200 Kbps for uploading.

"This is an exciting opportunity for us, and we hope rural areas will take advantage of it. They can discover a whole new world," Georghiou said.

Douglas said that the inclusion of satellite technology to get to rural areas is the second round of the stimulus program, which began last year.

For more information on the high-speed service go to www.starband.com/alaska or call 800-296-5818.

• Contact Jonathan Grass at 523-2276 or jonathan.grass@juneauempire.com.