Alaska has some of the most remote sparsely populated pockets of land in the U.S with many Alaska Natives living in tiny villages with just a few hundred people. The state is more than double the size of Texas and has more than three million lakes, 34,000 miles of shoreline, and 29,000 square miles of ice fields, but yet has fewer than 750,000 residents.
Broadband offers these communities a way to connect with the wider world and have access to everything from online classes, to healthcare services, and to job opportunities. It also offers Alaska Natives a way to preserve their indigenous culture for future generations and to be able share it with a global audience.
According to the Alaska “Broadband Task Force Draft Plan” published last August, telemedicine applications and services are in productive use throughout the state. Currently, the state has four healthcare systems using telemedicine services that includes the Indian Health Service, Veterans Affairs, Alaska Psychiatric Institute, and Providence Health & Services.
These organizations provide telemedicine at subspecialty clinics, provide in-home monitoring, emergent acute psychiatric evaluations, remote monitoring for intensive care patients, provide real-time evaluation for patients presenting stroke conditions, suicide prevention, emergency care, and e-ICU services.
Ann Neville, NTIA Director for the State Broadband Initiative recently traveled to Anchorage for the annual economic summit hosted by the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference, a non-profit regional economic development organization. The organization is working to drive responsible broadband development across the Alaska Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands, Bristol Bay, the Kodiak Archipelago, and the Pribilof Islands.
Neville talked about one project called the “telehealth coordinator” certificate program that is funded through the Distance Education Consortium and run by the non-profit Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
This program teaches students how to operate videoconferencing systems and telemedicine carts to help gather patient data which is then transmitted to distant hospitals. The Consortium also supports a program at the Alaska Vocational Technical Center to train rural internet technicians known as Village Internet Agents (VIA). The certified VIA graduates provide computer and network support to rural Alaska.
Using mobile wireless broadband as an option in the state could provide more opportunities to use telemedicine more effectively but to also deliver more effective technology to residents for a number of other reasons.
In order for the state to advance, an investment has to be made in new cell towers and connecting middle mile transport. According to the Brattle Group on behalf of GCI, Alaska’s largest telecommunication provider, to provide additional mobile broadband service to the approximately 17,500 unserved Census Blocks in Alaska, serving about 122,900 residents, 511 existing cell sites would require upgrading and 321 additional cell sites would have to be built.
Recently, the FCC announced that GCI is going to receive $41.4 million for rural 3G/4G wireless projects as part of the Tribal Mobility Fund for Phase I. More than 37,000 Alaskans across dozens of communities are expected to benefit and in addition, the FCC will also help fund Copper Valley Wireless to help with projects in the state.
GCI announced last December plans to deploy Alaska’s first one gigabit internet service to be available in Anchorage by 2015. This increase in gigabit service will substantially enhance premier broadband service in Anchorage.
Also, Verizon unveiled their new 4G LTE network last July and have invested more than $110 million in Alaska. The network however, uses existing infrastructure, on the area extending all the way from Anchorage to Fairbanks, North Pole, Juneau, Eagle River, and the Matanuska-Susitna region.
For more information, go to www.ntia.doc.gov and to www.gci.com.