Alaskan Communications

Alaskan Communications. Vignettes in History. , From the first communications project- an ill-fated attempt to string a trans-Siberian telegraph cable linking America with Europe in the 1860s to the satellite technology of today. Alaska has been a rugged proving ground for the latest technology., The first operational telegraph link came with the laying of 25 miles of line from military headquarters in Nome to the outpost at Port Safety in 1900. That trouble-plagued Norton Sound underwater cable was replaced three years later by the world's first application of radio-telegraph wire-less technology., As of 1905, 1,500 miles of land lines, 2,000 miles of submarine cables and 107 miles of wireless routes operated as a fragile network known as the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS)., By 1935, nearly all cable routes had been replaced by new wireless stations as the improving network became an important tool for commerce as well as the military. As the network changed, so did its name - to Alaska Communications System (ACS)., World War II and Japanese occupation in the Aleutian islands focused unprecedented attention on the network. The new Alcan highway opened a corridor for a 1,500-mile telephone line from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Fairbanks., The 1950s and the Cold War brought new defense dollars for more telecommunications facilities. Most visible were the giant antennas of the White Alice Communications System dotting the landscape from border to border. Using the new technique of bouncing high-power radio signals off the earth's troposphere to distant receiving stations, White Alice was the best way yet to traverse the rugged landscape., The government in 1962 consolidated communications management by transferring ACS from the Army to the Air Force, who already operated White Alice. While White Alice served major population centers, microwave and VHF ratio linked smaller communities to the network., In 1969 research began on employing satellite telecommunications in Alaska. Meanwhile, faced with a tired and overloaded communications network in need of massive modernization, the military sold ACS to RCA Corporation for $28.5 million. RCA through its Alascom division, took control of most long-lines facilities in 1971., RCA Alascom soon abandoned plans to use land-based radio-telephone technology for providing telephone service to rural Alaska because, by 1975, it was clear that emerging satellite telecommunications would be less costly and more efficient. Already Alascom was operating the state's first earth station at Talkeetna and was building a network of 140 earth stations around the state. In 10 years, that network would grow to more than 200 earth stations., In the mid-1970s, Alascom entered a new period of expansion as it built a complete microwave communications system paralleling the trans-Alaska oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez; concurrently, the program to provide telecommunications to every community of 25 or more people was in full swing., In 1979 Alascom was sold to Pacific Power and Light Company. The intense network expansion of the '70s was winding down as Alascom was poised to embark on a new era: the launching of Alaska's own telecommunications satellite. In 1982, Alascom's Aurora satellite entered a geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the equator providing unequaled service for the state., Today, Alascom's network is a model for developing countries faced with similar problems of scattered populations and vast distances. In harmony with local telephone companies across the state, Alascom offers services including marine radio, telex, telegrams and long distance telephone calling. Rapid deployment earth stations have been developed, video-conference centers are in use in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau, and AlaskaNet links customer terminals across the state with computers Outside., Alaskans have come a long way since the frail telegraph lines in Nome. In a single generation we have come from a ragged collection of isolated settlements on the Last Frontier to a single community linked by the century's most advanced technology.