Alaska Communications serves up 30, 50 Mbps consumer broadband speeds

Alaska Communications is upping the ante of its residential broadband products by serving up new 30 Mbps and 50 Mbps speed options for its customers in Anchorage.

Customers who sign up for the 50 Mbps tier will get upload speeds up to 10 Mbps, giving them a better usage experience for activities such as video chats, gaming, photo uploading, file backup and online storage.

However, a few questions remain. Alaska Communications has not revealed the price for the new 30 Mbps and 50 Mbps offerings or specified what parts of Anchorage will be the first to get the service.

The introduction of these new speed tiers follows its move to introduce a 15 Mbps offering throughout the state of Alaska in May. Previously, the service provider only offered speeds from 1 Mbps to 10 Mbps.

Leveraging its Fiber-to-the-Node (FTTN) network build, Alaska Communications is delivering speeds up to 50 Mbps using VDSL technology.

According the company's website, pricing for the unlimited 30/6 and 50/10 Mbps packages are $150 and $180 a month.

The service provider will eventually face greater competition from GCI Communications, which said last December that it would begin offering in 2015. 

However, it's possible that Alaska Communications could extend the same 1 Gbps capabilities it delivers to businesses today to consumer customers. 

Consumer broadband overall has been a factor for Alaska Communications' consumer revenue mix.

In the second quarter, the service provider's consumer broadband revenues grew 11.4 percent, to $6.24 million. Although its number of consumer broadband connections declined to 39,022, from 39,468 in the previous quarter, its consumer broadband ARPU increased from $49.46 to $52.51.

For more:
- see the release

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Updated article on Aug. 20 with information on pricing and network infrastrcuture.