On the edge of the U.S. Arctic Circle, in rural and remote areas, internet connectivity is slow and expensive, which is likely why 81 percent of rural Alaskans don’t have access to broadband internet. But that’s changing as a final piece of one of the most ambitious telecommunications projects in the rural United States – spanning a little over 3,000 miles – is completed. IEEE Spectrum reported the TERRA project was finished this past October by General Communication Inc. (GSI) which relies on 109 microwave towers and cost $300 million, plus six years of construction, to complete.
TERRA was a lengthy undertaking, with many topographic obstacles, including navigating various mountain ranges and handling permafrost. Towers were constructed on sites – either barged in or flown in via a massive Aircrane. “With an AirCrane coming in, we can stack a tower as fast as it can bring the equipment in,” says Brennan Walsh, president of STG, the contractor that oversaw many TERRA tower installations.
Another challenge was powering the remote sites. According to Rebecca Markley, GCI’s director for rural initiatives, the company considered installing solar arrays to power towers but decided to mount diesel-fueled generators instead due to space constraints. Each TERRA site also has multiple layers of hardware redundancy along with special adaptations to help it weather extreme conditions to sustain power through Alaska’s harsh climate. GCI also installed passive refrigeration devices called thermosyphons in the pilings on which the towers rest to prevent the permafrost layer the towers are built on from melting. Otherwise, should the ground ever thaw, a major “leaning tower” issue would ensue.
In a nutshell, TERRA wasn’t easy. Markley noted, “There have been lots of times where we were thinking, ‘Are we actually going to be able to do this?’”
This project begs the question, according to IEEE Spectrum, was it worth it to bring slightly better internet to approximately 45,000 people in 84 rural villages spread out over an area roughly the size of Germany? TERRA’s 109 towers – expected to last 50-60 years – now provide download speeds of 3 Mb/s, which is an improvement, but it’s still not fast enough to stream a high-definition movie. However, for GSI, there’s already been a positive revenue return of $12 million, thanks to the project and its internet service offerings.
Federal grants, loans, and subsidies funded TERRA. The federal government contributed $82 million in grants and loans under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and GCI secured about $35 million in federally supported loans through the New Markets Tax Credit program, plus an additional $6 million federal grant for the $300 million project.
December 7, 2017
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