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Article: Under the land, beneath the sea: Alaska gets new fiber optic links to world.
- Article from:
- Alaska Business Monthly
- Article date:
- May 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Alaska Business Publishing Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A newly laid fiber optic link between Anchorage and Fairbanks - and soon, Alaska and the world - may result in lower phone bills and better quality service.
Until recently, Alaska relied mainly on microwave- or satellite-based communication systems for intrastate voice and data transmission. New fiber optic cables can handle about 10 times the amount of connections as the state's older systems - 30,000 simultaneous calls each traveling at the speed of light. Those numbers can even be expanded.
"It's just like buying horsepower," said John Burns, vice president of World Net Communications. "Fiber optics is like a 48 horsepower engine, and microwave is of the ...