FCC

Federal Communications Commission Data on Broadband in Alaska

August 10 – According to its semi-annual report released in March 2008, the Federal Communications Commission states that there are no ZIP codes in Alaska that are without a broadband provider, as of June 30, 2007, yet the map provided by the FCC portrays large swaths of parts of Alaska as “zero del

Broadband Census in the States

Aug 11, 2008 — 2 min read

By William G. Korver, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com

August 10 – According to its semi-annual report released in March 2008, the Federal Communications Commission states that there are no ZIPcodes in Alaska that are without a broadband provider, as of June 30, 2007, yet the map provided by the FCC portrays large swaths of parts of Alaska as “zero delivery areas.”

The FCC has increased the definition of broadband from 200 kilobits per second (Kbps) to 768 Kbps, however, since the June 2007 data was collected. Consequently, some of what the FCC classified as broadband in the March 2008 report is likely no longer considered to be high-speed Internet.

The June 2007 FCC report states that 40 percent of ZIP codes in Alaska, with high-speed lines in service, had only two broadband providers. The following is the data collected by the FCC concerning the percentage of ZIP codes on June 30, 2007 with high-speed lines in service in Alaska:

Zero 0
One 15
Two 40
Three 20
Four 13
Five 6
Six 1
Seven 2
Eight 2
Nine 0
>=Ten 0

The initial set of data listed below regards the amount of high-speed providers by technology in Alaska as of June 30, 2007. The number that appears in parenthesis concerns the amount of high-speed lines per technology Alaska. Both set of figures are from the FCC’s March 2008 report.

ADSL- 9 (63,708)
SDSL- 4 (8,673)
Traditional Wireline- 4 (483)
Cable Modem- 1,2 or 3 (*)
Fiber- 1,2 or 3 (*)
satellite- 1, 2 or 3 (*)
fixed wireless- 7 (8,269)
mobile wireless- 1,2 or 3 (*)
power line and other- 0 (0)
Total (unduplicated)- 18 (156,187)

Of the 156,187 high-speed lines in Alaska, the FCC found 132,870 residential lines, as of June 30, 2007, but only 23,317 business high-speed lines.

The overall amount of high-speed lines in Alaska, therefore, rose from 20,906 in June 2001 to 156,187 in June 2007, according to the FCC.

A mere 76 percent of the time did residential end-user premises have access to high-speed services (xDSL availability) where state ILECs (incumbant local exchange carriers) offered local telephone service in Alaska, while * percent of the time residential end-user premises in Alaska have high-speed Internet services available (cable modem) where cable systems provide cable television service, according to the March 2008 report.

The following are the amounts of ADSL high-speed lines and Coaxial cable lines found in Alaska as of June 2007, according to the FCC March 2008 report:

ADSL- 63,708

Coaxial Cable – *

Editor’s Note: The FCC states that * means data has been withheld to maintain carrier confidentiality.