Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative Inc. (ASTAC) has announced the launch of the North Slope’s first and only 50Mbps and 100Mbps consumer internet services, called Home Internet 50+ and Home Internet 100+. Additionally, ASTAC is lowering the rates of some of our existing plans to provide improved affordability to our membership.
“With these new high-speed services, we start to unleash the true potential of the combination of ASTAC and Quintillion’s advanced fiber networks,” said Jens Laipenieks, ASTAC CEO/General Manager. “Very few communities in Alaska are 100% fiber-fed, even in the urban centers, and ASTAC is proud to be pioneering new techniques to reduce construction and operating costs and keep our products as robust and affordable as possible.”
With the recent completion of fiber being laid to Atqasuk, ASTAC has installed over 147 miles of fiber networks, connecting almost 2,300 locations to our fiber network. Over ninety one percent of North Slope residents now have an end-to-end fiber optic broadband connection when coupled with Quintillion’s subsea fiber optic cable network.
“Quintillion is very pleased to support ASTAC’s efforts to bring the fastest, most reliable and high throughput internet services to these North Slope communities,” said Quintillion CRO Mac McHale. “Our subsea fiber network was built to provide the missing “middle mile” to enable services like this and to help improve the lives of rural Alaska residents, businesses, schools, and clinics. These new services will meaningfully upgrade what ASTAC has provided since our launch in Dec 2017, and they come at a time when they are needed more than ever, as bandwidth demand continues to grow beyond expectations.”
The cooperative has made tremendous technological improvements in it’s over 40 years in business. From providing basic landline service to dial-up Internet and now providing a 100Mbps Internet in the most northern area of the world, ASTAC will continue to improve the telecommunications services for its member/owners.
