Vast distances, rugged terrain and often-extreme weather make our state one of the most challenging places to operate in North America, even the world. As an Alaska-born-and-raised company, GCI has embraced these challenges for the past 40 years, demonstrating that these hurdles make Alaska the perfect proving ground for new technology, not a deterrent to innovation. GCI’s extensive track record bringing connectivity to places no one else could, or would, is why we will be the first to bring standards-based 5G service to Alaska, making Anchorage one of the first communities in the world to experience the next generation of wireless connectivity.
This is exciting news for Alaska. Telecommunication providers around the globe are just beginning to deploy standards-based 5G technology in major urban centers. To deploy Alaska’s first 5G network, GCI is partnering with Ericsson and will be only the 22nd city in the world to deploy Ericsson’s 5G technology.
The move to 5G is one of the biggest initiatives in GCI’s history. It’s an investment of millions of dollars in Anchorage alone for what will be the northernmost 5G service in the nation. We’ll cover the entire municipality, from Girdwood to Eklutna, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.
GCI is bringing all of our assets to bear on delivering the best possible 5G experience to our customers in Alaska’s largest urban market. We’re combining Ericsson’s 5G equipment, which will be deployed to cell sites throughout the municipality, with our substantial radio spectrum and our robust metro fiber network. This combination will increase the capacity of our Anchorage wireless network by 10 times or more and provide better coverage.
The project will be completed in 2020 with initial 5G service commencing in the first half of that year. Even as we deploy the Anchorage 5G macro network, our teams are working tirelessly to integrate GCI’s wireless network and our metro fiber and cable plant to fully enable microcells, managed WiFi and other technologies. The result will be a wireline/wireless experience that will provide our customers nearly ubiquitous data connectivity across the city. In layman’s terms, it means that 5G is going to be really, really fast.
Anchorage is only the starting point. Like we did with our 1 GIG red internet service, we anticipate that 5G will expand to other cities across the state. Once 5G is up-and-running in Anchorage, I anticipate we will serve Juneau, Fairbanks and other fiber-served communities in the years to come.
Though it’s too early to say exactly what the full impact 5G will be in Alaska, perhaps Ericsson President & CEO Börje Ekholm put it best during GCI’s 5G announcement in June; “…you won’t call Alaska the Last Frontier, but rather the First Frontier for 5G.”