GCI To Fire Up Fiber-Fed 1-Gig Service In Fairbanks

Alaskan service operator GCI said it will deploy its 1-Gbps “fiber re:D” service in Fairbanks before the end of 2016. 

That commitment expands on plans to offer fiber-fed 1-Gig service in Juneau, also before the end of 2016, and its  initial plan to bring 1-Gig to Anchorage by 2015.

Taking a demand-driven rollout approach popularized by Google Fiber, GCI will also target fiber re:D initially to areas within Anchorage, Juneau and Fairbanks that demonstrate the most consumer demand.

“For more than 30 years, GCI has been committed to providing Alaskans the latest communications technology, and providing Fairbanks with the fastest possible broadband speeds with our fiber re:D service will be another example of that,” said Paul Landes, GCI’s SVP and GM of consumer services, in a statement.

Outside of its recent fiber-focused commitments,  GCI recently rolled out a free upgrade for its DOCSIS-powred “re:D” broadband service that doubled upload speeds to 10 Mbps and increased the downstream to 250 Mbps, or 25%, in several markets.

GCI launched 4G LTE service in Fairbanks earlier this year, and recently inked an LTE roaming deal with T-Mobile.