broadband

The small Aleutian village of Akutan is now connected to GCI’s high-speed fiber internet.Akutan residents now have access to 2.5 gig internet speeds, according to a Tuesday press release from GCI. That’s the fastest internet the Alaska-based telecommunications company currently offers. The company is working to bump that cap up to 10 gigs in the next few years through its Fiber+ network, which is an initiative to continue to provide competitive internet speeds across Alaska.

Akutan is set to be the next Aleutian community to get hooked up to fiber-optic broadband internet. The Alaska-based telecommunications company GCI said in a Wednesday statement they expect to finish laying cable around the island community by the end of the month.

Unalaska now has the fastest cell service in rural Alaska. That’s according to telecommunications company GCI, which turned up the high speed service on the island Tuesday, making it the state’s first rural community with a 5G connection.

The Unalaska City Council will weigh the city’s internet service provider options at its meeting Tuesday night, after unanimously deciding to postpone the discussion earlier this month.

Aleutians internet service provider OptimERA significantly lowered its prices for internet in Unalaska earlier this month. That’s following the arrival of high-speed broadband to the island last fall.

GCI connected its first Unalaska residential customers to its fastest 2 gig internet speeds this week. And while some Unalaskans now have access to that fiber connection, most community members will have to wait until the new year before logging on.That timeframe is a little later than the telecommunications company had hoped — GCI had been planning for a launch by the end of the year. But for the majority of the island, that service is still weeks away. The company announced Thursday that its island-wide launch of high-speed internet will be rolled out in a “phased approach” and won’t likely happen until mid-January.

The 800-mile fiber optic project had just passed a huge milestone earlier this month, when the company ran their first test and successfully brought connectivity to Unalaska. But on Monday, mere weeks away from the official launch, something damaged the cable.

The moment many Unalaskans have been waiting years for is just around the corner: fast and affordable high speed internet has made its way to the island and is about to get booted up.GCI has been working since the spring of 2020 to bring fiber optic broadband to the region through its Aleutians Fiber project. And now, two and a half years later, the initial cable tests are finished and things are about to “get lit,” according to the telecommunications company.

Work has started to lay 800 miles of subsea cable that project engineers say will bring high speed internet to Unalaska and Akutan by the end of the year.

Nearly 2,000 tons of subsea fiber has begun the journey from Europe to Alaska and its eventual home on the ocean floor along the Aleutian Chain. The fiber — which is the foundation of GCI’s 800-mile Aleutians Fiber Project — would close the digital divide and bring high speed internet to homes in some of the most remote communities in the nation, including Unalaska.