Alaska Communications serves up 1 Gig for business, ups consumer broadband speeds

Alaska Communications has jumped into the superfast broadband game by offering local businesses up to 1 Gigabit speeds in Anchorage thanks to an ongoing expansion of its fiber network.

The 1 Gbps capabilities complement its 200 Mbps dedicated Internet offering, its growing suite of Gigabit Ethernet solutions and the 200 Mbps unlimited business Internet offering that the telco already offers for area business customers.

"For the past 18 months we've been investing in a very large fiber optic network project to bring faster connectivity to our customers. These new speeds are a result of that work," said Anand Vadapalli, president and CEO of Alaska Communications, in a release.

Business broadband services continue to be a growing element for the telco. In the fourth quarter of 2013, business broadband connections increased to 19,285 from 19,216 and business broadband ARPU increased to $181.77 from $175.

Being able to offer 1 Gbps connections for businesses enables it to support the growing demand for managed services that require higher bandwidth. The service provider is also upping the speeds of its consumer offering, with plans to offer speeds up to 50 Mbps in some areas. However, it did not reveal the timeline or the pricing for the new offering. Up until now, the service provider offered speeds from 1 to 10 Mbps.

For more:
- see the release

Related articles:
Alaska Communications gets CE 2.0 certification nod from MEF
Alaska Communications bolsters IT capabilities with TekMate acquisition
Alaska Communications extends hosted VoIP service to Southcentral Alaska