Map of Norton Sound, Alaska (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
GCI (NASDAQ:GNCMA) and Teck Red Dog Operations, a zinc producer, announced an agreement to bring high-speedInternet service to Red Dog Operations and the community of Noatak, AK.
The project, which is targeted for completion in 2017, is part of a broader GCI strategy to connect Arctic communities to high-speed Internet. In June, GCI announced plans to expand its Terrestrial for Every Rural Region in Alaska (TERRA) network to include 10 new communities in the Northwest Arctic Borough and Norton Sound region. The expansion is intended to extend services to Buckland, Kiana, Noorvik, Selawik, Koyuk, Elim, Golovin, White Mountain, Stebbins and St. Michael.
Martin Cary, GCI’s senior vice president of business services, said: “Our team understands the challenges of building infrastructure and providing service to more than 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle. In addition to the 72 rural communities already served by TERRA, GCI is expanding TERRA to 10 more rural communities in 2016. When Red Dog and Noatak are complete, GCI’s TERRA network will deliver high-speed Internet to a total of 84 rural Alaska locations.
About Mark Milliman
Mark Milliman is a Principal Consultant at Inphotonics Research driving the adoption and assisting local governments to plan, build, operate, and lease access open-access municipal broadband networks. Additionally, he works with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to increase the value of their intellectual capital through the creation of strategic product plans and execution of innovative marketing strategies. With more than 22 years of experience in the telecommunications industry that began at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Mark has built fiber, cable, and wireless networks around the world to deliver voice, video, and data services. His thorough knowledge of all aspects of service delivery from content creation to the design, operation, and management of the network is utilized by carriers and equipment manufacturers. Mark conceived and developed one of the industry's first multi-service provisioning platform and is multiple patent holder. He is active in the IEEE as a senior member. Mark received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.