SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Late last year, Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr got an "earful" from remote Alaskan residents who were concerned with how poor their access to the internet is — and they weren't wrong. Alaska has, on average, some of the slowest internet connections in the country, primarily due to its distance from the rest of the continental United States.
But remote Alaskans may see faster speeds soon. MTA Fiber Holdings announced today that it would build the "first and only all-terrestrial" fiber optic network running from Alaska and into the Lower 48. The line will begin in North Pole, Alaska and will travel through Canada, connecting with Canadian carriers, where it will finally connect with "any major hub" in the US. A vast majority of Alaska's current connections to the global internet either run through a handful of submarine cables, satellites, or wireless connections.
"This is a major step for Alaska that will ensure future capacity requirements for MTA members and can support the continuing growth of broadband across the state of Alaska," MTA CEO Michael Burke said in a statement.
According to the press release, only internet traffic that both originates and terminates in the US will be carried over the network.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday May 03 2019, @07:40PM (2 children)
Make it 100 petabit/s.
Also Alaskans could benefit the most from Starlink.
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/90lv45/elon_musk_starlink_will_probably_be_first_used_as/ [reddit.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday May 03 2019, @08:12PM (1 child)
No they can't because the apoasis of Starlink Phase 1 orbits is going to be 7 or 8 degrees south of the majority of Alaska. Juneau should have consistent line of sight. But North Pole? Fairbanks? Good Luck.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 03 2019, @08:48PM
Well, maybe they can get it from OneWeb.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/spacex-seeks-starlink-trademark-for-its-satellite-broadband-network/ [arstechnica.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday May 03 2019, @08:59PM (4 children)
All that extra speed will mean nothing when you have a data cap of 50gb/month for $100/month because
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 03 2019, @09:47PM (3 children)
50 gigabits is only 6.25 gigabytes. Your standards are about two decades out of date if you think that's a lot.
That said, even you mean 50 gigabytes rather than gigabits, given
50 gigabytes is not that significant a monthly usage for even one person, never mind a household.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 03 2019, @10:07PM (1 child)
Plans might vary by location, but here's what I'm seeing:
https://www.mtasolutions.com/residential/internet/ [mtasolutions.com]
$60/month for 150 GB cap
$89/month for 300 GB cap
"$1 per GB overage charge is incurred once the plan cap has been exceeded."
$99/month for no cap
$129/month for no cap
$149/month for no cap
$169/month for no cap
Not sure what the speeds are.
"And MTA never throttles our customers down to unusable speeds."
An interesting statement. Define the lowest possible "usable speed".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday May 03 2019, @10:16PM
Thats quite a bit higher than what I recall from when I lived up there. When I lived up there I argued frequently with a person at MTA with decision making power about how unreasonable the low caps were and what was, at the time, a 50gb throttle to stop the "abusers". Pretty much all an excuse to not upgrade their infrastructure.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday May 03 2019, @10:12PM
The quote I had above is from someone at MTA
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 03 2019, @08:59PM (10 children)
Maybe they can reduce their level of alcoholism and domestic violence through proper porn binges.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Friday May 03 2019, @09:08PM (2 children)
"Remote Alaskans" are unlikely to be alcoholics or benefit from this line. MTA doesn't like infrastructure that wasn't built for them by the State or Feds, maybe there are some grants involved that help with that, but infrastructure is touch when villages are hundreds of miles apart. Remote villages tend to be native and tend to be dry. Huge fines taking firewater into the native villages and the villages themselves will ban/remove forcefully/expel anyone who drinks because it can destroy tribal cohesion.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 03 2019, @09:55PM (1 child)
LOL natives who don't drink. Right up there with Muslims who don't love goats.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday May 03 2019, @10:19PM
Depends where you live. In any of the established cities/towns it is a major issue. Native folks get the firewater, get drunk, the village cuts them out of their share of the native corp shares/dividends and kicks them out of the village. They wander Anchorage (or whatever) as a hopeless alcoholic with no friends, family, or job. Most seemingly unable to speak English, who get through the night by stealing Listerine from Walmart. State enforced dry areas as well as village elder enforced bans are designed to keep the population of people not used to any alcohol consumption from being destroyed by its allure
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 03 2019, @10:05PM (3 children)
Moose porn is a thing?
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Friday May 03 2019, @10:10PM (2 children)
Rule 34
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 05 2019, @12:16AM (1 child)
34. If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.[29] [fandom.com]
Not sure I see the connection?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @07:12AM
https://rule34.xxx/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=2973595 [rule34.xxx]
https://rule34.xxx/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=2984023 [rule34.xxx]
There you go.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 03 2019, @10:17PM (1 child)
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/article/perils-prohibition-look-alaskas-failed-war-booze-part-i/2013/09/04/ [adn.com]
Seeing the state's relationship with booze, I'm sure the 2014 legalization of cannabis is being implemented slowly on the local level. They should fix that and see if it helps.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday May 03 2019, @10:33PM
The biggest thing stopping the cannabis legalization was Alaskans being unwilling to forgive prior convictions. The general opinion I found from asking people was "when they did it it was still illegal, so they have to serve their time" and because it was included as a part of every legalization legislation the voters kept turning it down.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Saturday May 04 2019, @05:18AM
Most of those tiny villages are dry for some reason. I would imagine the domestic violence and other substance abuse would drop if pot was legalized there.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 03 2019, @09:36PM (4 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 03 2019, @10:07PM (1 child)
Too risky, BC is a colony of China.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Arik on Friday May 03 2019, @10:27PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 03 2019, @10:15PM (1 child)
Alaska has lots of cooling, space, hidden places, and hydro potential.
With that many assets, having a dedicated (therefore "secure") high-speed connection to the mainland would be perfect to treat massive amounts of classified data, which you wouldn't want to see transit via anybody else.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Friday May 03 2019, @10:28PM
Don't be so naïve.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by Rupert Pupnick on Friday May 03 2019, @10:09PM (2 children)
Faster loading times on those web pages being served from Alaska!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 03 2019, @10:13PM
More Freenet nodes in Alaska.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday May 04 2019, @12:30AM
Shouldn't Alaska be a prime candidate for server farms? Don't they have more or less unlimited cooling and power available? Just like northern Europe / Scandinavia. That said it might be an issue of not to many customers and/or users in the area, after all it's kind empty and the population centers of Canada and north western US are a fair distance away and it's not like there are any massive population centers on the Russian side either.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Friday May 03 2019, @11:34PM (2 children)
What is this Russia, what is the point of emphasizing domestic traffic only?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 03 2019, @11:51PM (1 child)
Shock: Most Alaskans are going to access English language content, hosted on servers located primarily in the U.S.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Monday May 06 2019, @04:13PM
No doubt that the majority of the traffic from Alaska would be headed to the US, but who benefits from bragging that ONLY internal traffic will flow over this pipe?
I don't know what the rest of Alaska's large connections look like, but what are they worried this would become a transit network for rural Canada or something?
I'm not that old, but I remember when a major selling point of the internet was it's lack of borders. Now, we have the great firewall of China, and the Russian motherland intranet, and the 'Laska 'Muricanneciton. I don't want an internet where it is called border gateway protocol because it is supposed to enforce a national border...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @10:32PM (3 children)
According to Google, there are about 3/4 of a million Alaskans. That means 100Tb/s is around 133Mbit/s for every single Alaskan, simultaneously. Given TFA’s emphasis on rural customers, one has to wonder how MTA plans to deliver all those bits to the end customers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @04:18AM (2 children)
Yeah, and 640kB should be enough for anybody.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:52PM (1 child)
According to census data, there are 221,600 households in Alaska. That’s roughly 450Mbit/s per household. The current average downloads speed in Alaska is 25Mbit/s. So to actually fill this new pipe, *every* Alaskan household would have to get an 18-times faster last mile connection, *and* all those households would need to use the full capacity of their connection *at exactly the same time*.
Apparently, 95% of US internet consumption is video, and 4K streaming is about 15-20 MBit/s. So this would mean that at a single point in time, every household in Alaska would need to watch THIRTY 4K streams simultaneously.
Why would someone build a pipe that can carry a quarter of all US Internet traffic to a state that has 0.2% of the US population? The only rational explanation is that indeed, Alaska would be a great place to serve content FROM.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday May 05 2019, @09:43PM
There's something to be said for future proofing.
Additionally, you have governments, businesses, and universities that could be sending a lot of data over the cable.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]