Millions in federal grants awarded for rural Alaska internet - ABC News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- More than $100 cardinal successful grants person been announced by the national authorities arsenic portion of a large effort to adjacent the integer disagreement successful parts of agrarian Alaska.

The projects volition amended upon an existing strategy of net work that is simply a bid of microwave transmitters with constricted information transmission and vulnerability to atrocious weather, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The grants see $73 cardinal for a concern betwixt the Alaska Native colony corp for Bethel, Bethel Native Corporation, and telecommunications institution GCI. That partnership, announced Monday, is aimed astatine delivering fibre cablegram to 10 villages and much than 10,000 people. The task has been dubbed the Airraq Network, with Airraq translating to “string that tells the story," according to a property release.

The task includes $42 cardinal from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to physique a fibre web to the determination hub assemblage of Bethel and villages of Eek, Oscarville, Napaskiak and Platinum, according to the statement. A $31 cardinal assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service programme volition bring fibre work to the villages of Atmautluak, Kasigluk, Nunapitchuk, Quinhagak and Tuntutuliak.

The connection said the task would bring “2 gigabit net speeds and affordable plans to much than 10,000 Alaskans.”

Separately, different telecommunications company, Alaska Communications and Calista Corp., the Alaska Native determination corp for overmuch of southwest Alaska, volition person a assistance from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to bring high-speed fibre net to much than 2,300 Alaskans successful 7 different villages successful the Bethel region, the organizations announced recently. Those communities are Lower Kalskag, Upper Kalskag, Tuluksak, Akiak, Akiachak, Kwethluk and Napakiak.

Calista Corp. and Alaska Communications applied for astir $52 cardinal but a circumstantial backing grant had not been announced by the national authorities arsenic of Monday, said Thom Leonard, a Calista spokesperson.

Funding from past year's national infrastructure measure and different sources has been lauded by governmental leaders and officials with Alaska Native organizations and telecommunications companies arsenic providing a unsocial accidental to amended telecommunications successful galore parts of the state.

Earlier this year, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced a $50 cardinal assistance to supply fiber-optic cablegram to astir 20 villages successful Alaska's Interior arsenic portion of a collaboration betwixt Doyon Inc., an Alaska Native corporation, and Alaska Communications.