Alaskan Bandwidth Boosted by Cable to Oregon Eight-fold increase in bandwidth expected next year Alaska Communications Systems is an Anchorage-based telco that is known for being the only company to offer 3G services in the state. With a focus on speeding things up for customers in Alaska, the company has just begun work on the building of a new 3000-mile high-speed data transfer cable connecting Anchorage to a city in Oregon. When complete, this cable should offer an eight-fold increase to the bandwidth in Alaska. The cable is expected to be up and running next year as just one part of a comprehensive $175 million plan to improve Alaska’s connectivity.
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  Vamp5c077Premium
join:2003-01-28
MD
kudos:1 | Nice.. Guess by cable they mean under sea fiber..
This should improve Alaska's latency to the US since it is a shorter path than going around and through Canada and many hops in between.
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|  | | | Re: Nice.. said by Vamp:Guess by cable they mean under sea fiber.. This should improve Alaska's latency to the US since it is a shorter path than going around and through Canada and many hops in between. You are completely wrong. There are no direct connections between alaska and Canada. There are currently 3 fiber connections connecting Anchorage to the Lower 48. 2 of them are owned by GCI 1 is owned by AT&T. ACS (the telco laying this fiber) currently uses AT&T's fiber.
All Alaska traffic runs through Washington or Oregon before going anywhere else in the world including Canada. So the new fiber should really have no noticable differences in latency.
I don't know the exact figures but I'm pretty sure the current fiber is less than 2 or 3% utilized right now anyway. Theres no current need for this fiber as far as Alaska as a whole is concerned, but the Telco ACS will now have their own backhaul to the lower 48 without having to use AT&T's fiber. | |
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lightzoutPremium
join:2005-07-29
San Anselmo, CA | Hear that? Its the sound of thousands of gamer's rejoicing! In fact, maybe this is a sign its time to flee California and start panning for gold. It would make the long winter nights far more bearable. | |
| | | why oregon... wouldnt it be cheaper to go to Washington?? | |
| |  darciliciousCyber LibrarianPremium
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR
kudos:1 | Re: why oregon... You'd think so. And I gotta ask, why Florence, OR? | |
| | |  jbobReach Out and Touch SomeonePremium
join:2004-04-26
Little Rock, AR | Re: why oregon... Probably because this project is also know as AKORN for Alaska Oregon Network. Alaska Communication Systems (ACS) is acquiring Crest Communications which already has facilities in Alaska and Oregon.
»findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m···24967972
Just a short hop from Portland to Florence. May already have Fiber there or soon will. | |
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|  bencPremium
join:2007-06-17
Glen Carbon, IL
 ·Charter
| said by djhexer:wouldnt it be cheaper to go to Washington?? I suspect there might be some red tape or something that makes going to Oregon cheaper.
After all, when I get mail from IL, the mail goes to St. Louis first, and then it doubles back to get to me. You'd think it'd be easier to say, have the mail truck make a stop at my town, and then go to St. Louis. But no... | |
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| | Expect to see the deployment date pushed back. Given how little time they have before the weather gets bad again, I'd expect to see the deployment date pushed back. Also, given that the plates in that part of the Pacific are responsible for significant seismic activity, I'm not sure how enthusiastic I'd be an investor. | |
| |  koolman2Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | Re: Expect to see the deployment date pushed back. They cause little to no problems for the current cables running up here, so I think they have it worked out already.
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 Brat75I remember 8-tracks
join:2003-02-05
Kent, WA | Undersea fiber optic cables Have already been in use for quite a few years now.
GCI, the other large telco in Anchorage, has at least 2 direct fiber optics from Anchorage down to Seattle. And there are more, like one from Seward and Juneau to Seattle.
So far, the only negative thing I've heard about undersea fiber optic cable was that a propeller from a boat cut one. Really, few years ago a boat cut one of the lines. Screwed up bandwidth, but hey, we still had connections.
Alaska is interesting in that it's a large land mass with minimal infrastructure and minimal population. Anchorage is the largest city, with a pop of 280K. »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorage%2C_Alaska
Heck, a lot of the villages out in the Bush still don't have running sewer systems... Let's hope that ACS will up the coverage and put more towers out in the Bush, for the people out there who need help.
Brat75
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Salted Pineapple, anyone? | |
| koolman2Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | False title This will increase the bandwidth to ACS by 8, not the entire state. GCI has plenty of bandwidth to go around, and they blow ACS out of the water with their 10 Mbps unlimited cable modem service vs. ACS's 3 Mbps DSL.
»www.acsalaska.com/Cultures/en-US···rnet.htm (click "Sign Up!")
»www.gci.com/forhome/promos/xtrem···asd7.htm
As stated before, GCI already has several fibre optic cables running down south.
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| |  McLovinChicka chicka yeahPremium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
·GCI.net
| Re: False title And ACS is still utilizing CDSL technology in a lot of parts in the state. I highly doubt that they will see any increase. ACS is notorious, at least here in Fairbanks, for overselling their DSLAMs by almost 200%. An engineer I spoke with informed me that a few areas in Fairbanks only had about 32Mbps of total aggregate bandwidth to supply about 180 customers. Which would be fine if everyone had their 320Kbps tier connection. But more people are jumping on the high bandwidth wagon up here and are slowly finding that ACS isn't the way to go. ACS currently has one 2.4Gbps OC48 link through Sprint running to Seattle. Where as GCI has 3 fiber links, two OC48 links running undersea to Seattle, and their newer, partial OC192 link going to Tacoma, I believe. The OC192 link was installed to provide upgradeability, should they deem it necessary. One company that I expect is going to get some decent WiMAX rollout, is AT&T. There was a news article a while back that Karl wrote about Juneau, Alaska's political capital city, is now a WiMAX rolled town, with more smaller towns in their eyes... | |
| | | | | Re: False title said by McLovin:And ACS is still utilizing CDSL technology in a lot of parts in the state. I highly doubt that they will see any increase. ACS is notorious, at least here in Fairbanks, for overselling their DSLAMs by almost 200%. An engineer I spoke with informed me that a few areas in Fairbanks only had about 32Mbps of total aggregate bandwidth to supply about 180 customers. Which would be fine if everyone had their 320Kbps tier connection. But more people are jumping on the high bandwidth wagon up here and are slowly finding that ACS isn't the way to go. ACS currently has one 2.4Gbps OC48 link through Sprint running to Seattle. Where as GCI has 3 fiber links, two OC48 links running undersea to Seattle, and their newer, partial OC192 link going to Tacoma, I believe. The OC192 link was installed to provide upgradeability, should they deem it necessary. One company that I expect is going to get some decent WiMAX rollout, is AT&T. There was a news article a while back that Karl wrote about Juneau, Alaska's political capital city, is now a WiMAX rolled town, with more smaller towns in their eyes... Actually ACS has their connection (I don't know what type) through AT&T. Sprint does not have fiber running from AK to Seattle.
GCI has 2 lines from Anchorage to Seattle however they have a Sonet ring also in souteast AK. It all converges and hits Seattle VIA 1 of 2 links between anchorage and Seattle. | |
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1 edit | Curious This is pretty cool, I wonder how it's going to work. | |
|  MaxxxtPeculiar Mental TwistPremium
join:2001-06-12
Denver, CO | Hope the caps go away then In Palmer AK, MTA has a great 8000/768 DSL line, with a insanely stupid 10GB Monthly cap, and the fines for overages are criminal at 15.99 a GB. These company's can no longer cry we don't have the bandwidth. Its like having a new Ferrari and not being able to drive it faster than 15mph..sigh. From what I was reading in comments, bandwidth is not even a problem anyway. | |
| | koolman2Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | Re: Hope the caps go away then The problem is that MTA gets their bandwidth from another company, so it's really that company to blame.
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| | | | | Re: Hope the caps go away then said by koolman2:The problem is that MTA gets their bandwidth from another company, so it's really that company to blame. That doesn't even make any sense. | |
| | | | koolman2Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | Re: Hope the caps go away then The company providing bandwidth to MTA is charging a less-than-prime rate, and thus MTA has to pass some of that on to the customer.
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