Rural Alaska has recently secured access to broadband-over-satellite service from Spacenet Inc.'s StarBand Open Skies initiative, which will purportedly provide service to the state's most remote areas for an entry-level, monthly service fee of $50.
Spacenet says it aims to provide "affordable, broadband Internet access" to rural regions of Alaska and Hawaii that currently have no high-speed access.
Funding for the StarBand Open Skies initiative came from a $7.5 million earmark in the federal stimulus program that created a Rural Utilities Service under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to the Alaska website for StarBand Open Skies, service will include "reliable, high performance, always-on broadband satellite Internet for homes and businesses with download speeds up to 1 Mbps ... 10 free hours of dial access per month for backup and traveling, virus protection, spam filtering," not to mention up to 15 e-mail accounts, round-the-clock online support and a member's portal.
"The broadband investment is much-needed in rural Alaska to help expand affordable broadband ... critical for connecting rural areas of the state," Sen. Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, said in a press release. "Open Skies will enable access to services and resources including education and health care tools that millions of people across America already benefit from."
Broadband access is critical to an education initiative by the Alaska Legislature and Gov. Sean Parnell to grow the number of in-state college graduates and, with them, the University of Alaska system. Parnell last year signed into law the Alaska Performance Scholarship -- and in order for rural students to qualify for the state funds, they need access to a much more rigorous academic course-load than that currently offered in many of the state's far-flung communities and school districts.
That access could come sooner than expected with broadband-over-satellite service.
Spacenet claims that nine-out-of-10 homes in rural Alaska should be able to receive the satellite transmissions, provided that they can mount a receiver at home pointing toward the southern sky.
There are a few caveats. The StarBand Open Skies service is tiered, meaning to get the best bandwidth, customers must pay a premium. Currently the program offers a peak traffic speed of 1.5 Mbps for $79.99 per month. A contract is required -- and like most other telecom contracts out there, consumers are required to pay a hefty cancellation fee to opt-out before fulfillment.
DirectTV, a broadcast-over-satellite service that beams cable TV from outer space, has a notorious record for charging significant cancellation fees even if a customer's home fails to receive optimal transmission due to geography, barriers or weather.
President Obama this week visited rural regions of the Lower 48 to tout broadband wireless Internet access as key to the nation's continued economic recovery. He announced plans to ask Congress for a one-time, $5 billion investment in bringing next generation Internet technology, referred to by telecoms as 4G, out to the nation's most remote outposts.
Contact Eric Christopher Adams at eric(at)alaskadispatch.com