Alaska Power and Telephone customers will soon get faster Internet speeds and be able to transfer more data, thanks to the fiber optic line that runs from Juneau to Skagway and Haines.

AP&T installed the 86-mile undersea cable last fall with the help from the HOS Silver Arrow. The Lynn Canal Fiber project had been in the works for several years, and cost nearly $11 million.

The new line will supplement but not replacee AP&T’s Southeast Microwave Network (SAMN).

“SAMN will continue to operate as the solid data transport workhorse it has been for the past eight years,” said AP&T Director of Marketing Mark McCready. The mountaintop-based SAMN will continue to serve remote towns as well as provide space and power resources to wireless carriers and other industry partners, he said.

According to CEO Mike Garrett, the fiber-optic cable exponentially increases internet capacity. Customers will notice a difference once the line is turned on, on Jan. 25. Until then, AP&T support staff are working to make the transition happen smoothly.

The line is made of 36 fibers and provides 7,000 times the capacity of SAMN. This means on busy summer days, when the streets fill up with cruise ship tourists, cell phones will still get a signal and there won’t be a lag on Internet connections, Garrett said. The fiber-optic line is expected to be in service for the next 20 years.

“AP&T broadband customers in Haines, Klukwan and Skagway will be automatically migrated to the new tier most closely aligned with what they are paying for their service today. For example: If today you are on AP&T’s lowest tier speed and usage (768/10GB), on the 25th of January your account will automatically be migrated to the new lowest tier of (5MB/150GB) at the same price of $49.95 a month,” McCready said.

When the new service begins, customers may notice a hiccup in service. “There may be a momentary drop and then come right back up – a one or two second outage. If a service is down, we already know and will be working on it,” Garrett said.

New customers will still need a land phone line to connect to AP&T’s Internet service, but the company is working toward creating “data-only” service packages.

By comparison, the new AP&T packages will be more expensive than similar service in large cities like Seattle, Garrett said. “There’s a big cost to get to Internet from Juneau,” he said, adding that population density reduces price.

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