Fort Wainwright to extend free Wi-Fi to all permanent party barracks after pilot

Fort Wainwright is extending free wireless internet to every permanent party barracks on the installation, the Army said Wednesday, widening a six-building pilot that began earlier this year. Each soldier gets an individual account for up to 10 personal devices, with speeds up to 1 gigabit per second across those devices, at no cost.

The Army said the service is meant for daily needs such as online learning, training, video calls and streaming, and for staying in touch with family and friends during off-duty hours.

"Providing reliable internet access in the barracks is an important quality of life improvement for our soldiers," said Col. John W. Campbell, U.S. Army Garrison Alaska commander.

Spc. Noah D. Packard said reliable internet makes a real difference. "I am working on my master's degree, and before this it could be difficult to submit assignments and documents on time," he said.

The service runs through an Intergovernmental Support Agreement with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. That is a public-to-public agreement, authorized under federal law, that lets military installations work with state or local government partners on installation services; public universities are eligible partners. UAF managed installation and operation of the pilot network through the provider it uses for its dormitories. The Army's May pilot announcement named that provider as Boldyn Networks.

That announcement said Fort Wainwright was the second installation, after Fort Riley, Kansas, to test barracks Wi-Fi under the Army's Barracks Task Force, with pilot speeds of about 300 megabits per second and peaks up to 600.

Barracks internet previously came from commercial providers; a 2020 quality-of-life and housing town hall record listed monthly packages from about $60 to $175.

The Army did not give a completion date. It said the installation is working to finish as quickly as possible, with garrison leadership prioritizing the work over the holidays to help soldiers cut out-of-pocket internet costs.