Provider to improve broadband internet to rural Alaska

An effort to bring broadband internet to rural Alaska next summer took another step forward, as Anchorage-based Pacific Dataport recently received authorization form the Federal Communications Commission for its Aurora 4A earth station gateway. The gateway, located in Utah, will connect the Aurora 4A satellite to the main internet in order to provide high-speed, broadband internet throughout Alaska. Pacific Dataport plans to launch the first of two satellites next spring.

Both satellites will cover the entirety of the state of Alaska. According to Pacific Dataport Spokesperson Shawn Williams, high-speed internet will be available wherever “you can look up and see the sky.” This means that people in the Bering Strait region will have the option of faster internet in less than a year. Williams said that the rates begin at $199 per month, but within the next few years will drop to $99 per month.

A common issue in rural Alaska is the internet going down, often due to weather. Williams said that weather is not as much of a concern with a satellite. Moreover, there will, hopefully, be no downtime for repairs. “Once it goes up, we hope to never see it again,” Williams said of the satellite.

Williams explained that the first satellite will launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida in the spring of 2021 and then will enter orbit. The satellite will be hovering over Alaska and will move with the earth’s rotation, so it will appear stationary relative to earth. This satellite, the Aurora 4A, is a high-throughput satellite which can process data at a speed of 7.5 gigabytes per second. The company plans on launching a very high-throughput satellite, the Aurora IV, later if they are able to garner enough funding. The Aurora IV has a processing capacity of 70 gigabytes per second. The rates for this internet service will be higher, Williams said.

According to Williams, none of the funding for the satellites was state or federal; it was all private money. Pacific Dataport was created in 2017 with the purpose of bringing high-speed internet to Alaskans. Williams said that an estimated 40 percent of Alaskans have either no internet or no broadband internet, while another 20 percent have very slow internet. “We’re amazed that this hasn’t been addressed in the past,” he said. Pacific Dataport parent company is Alaska-based Microcom.