Video Clips

Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.

Aaron Helmericks

“We received 3 grants totaling $121 million, 18 communities across Alaska focused in the continuing to close the digital divide in western Alaska as well as the greater Anchorage area. And as we've talked before, our technology utilized is a combination of fiber hybrid microwave and fiber to the prem to be able to lower the overall investment cost but still provide a highly reliable and resilient network connectivity.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:23

Tony Dodge

“our investment is $26.7 million as, as part of the grant there, and there's about 12,000 additional locations in order to touch those 9,000.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:39

Aaron Helmericks

“one of the big ones was the AUA, or our Alaska United Aleutians Project, which serves 13 communities and approximately 8,000 residents along the Aleutian chain. That investment, and we'll touch on this, was both through public federal grants, RUS and NTIA, but also significant private investment from GCI to bring this project to completion.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:40

Francis Chapelle

“This whole BEAD project has been— an effort that's included lots and lots of people on both— in all of our companies and all the rest of the telcos around the country as well. But even just shaping what's happened in Alaska and how that money has been awarded and where it's going and what it's going to do has been a ton of work jointly through just the 3 companies here.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:10

Aaron Helmericks

“The bead Anchorage area is a combination of fiber to the home with middle-mile line extensions into it.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:35

Francis Chapelle

“Our BID award, $108 million, which is pretty large. We matched that with $36 million of our own investment. And we're going to hit over 10,000 locations with that.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:22

Tony Dodge

“We've, we've got a great project with Doyon where we're building connectivity to Fort Yukon. So that allowed us to pick up Manly Hot Springs, Mentoe. Those areas that we're not currently in today, but we will be after this is all said and done.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:11

Megan Webb

“a billion was allocated.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:28

Francis Chapelle

“the effort was to focus on areas where the density of the addresses was lowest, right? So that's where the costs are highest. And so we tried to get— focus our B.E.E.D. Spending where we have existing and where we can leverage our existing network and reach more of those households that are in low-density regions— Big Lake, Palmer, Wasilla, Tulalip, et cetera.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:22

Tony Dodge

“Our project timeline, we were awarded the grant. I think everybody at this table was awarded the grant in April. We're working through that, the grant agreement. We expect it to be finalized here any day now. And then where there's a 4-year commitment, so all of our construction that's BEAD-related will be finished in 2030.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:29

Aaron Helmericks

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:15

Francis Chapelle

“made a substantial commitment of our own investment funding to keep that average cost per BSL, broadband service location, to keep that cost low and to maximize the number of BSLs that we were going to hit.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:20

Tony Dodge

“currently, even though we're still working through the grant agreement, we have construction planning underway. We're doing high-level design on fiber. We're working through picking our fixed wireless sites for deployment.”

10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies · Oct 20, 2026

0:18

Heidi Hedberg “That started October 1st for January cohort. I still have the same number of staff. I still have a better IT system, but I am— we're not on staff yet. So there's significant concerns around supporting the IT modernization efforts.”

xit Interviews: What Alaska's Commissioners Want the Next Governor to Know - October 15, 2026 · Oct 20, 2026

0:17

Heidi Hedberg “And so we have had to pivot in the last year to address those changes.”

xit Interviews: What Alaska's Commissioners Want the Next Governor to Know - October 15, 2026 · Oct 20, 2026

0:18

Heidi Hedberg “There's been a lot of work in that space, and then we have a strong team that is working it. But we are just— it's a boat that's just getting stood up and moving forward.”

xit Interviews: What Alaska's Commissioners Want the Next Governor to Know - October 15, 2026 · Oct 20, 2026

0:29

Heidi Hedberg “Budget neutrality language was also implemented, and that means that we need to ensure that the cost of care is appropriate, which means we need to make changes within our Medicaid program.”

xit Interviews: What Alaska's Commissioners Want the Next Governor to Know - October 15, 2026 · Oct 20, 2026

0:32

Heidi Hedberg “I would say the SNAP/Medicaid changes, our congressional delegation wrote in to the bill to give us more time. But we have a lot of work to reduce our payment error rate to get it below 6% by the end of this calendar year, and we're sitting at 20%. Otherwise, the new administration administration, it's a $45 million price tag to pay for those benefits. So like the workflow, the work changes have to happen this year. This year is critical for those changes.”

xit Interviews: What Alaska's Commissioners Want the Next Governor to Know - October 15, 2026 · Oct 20, 2026

0:10

Heidi Hedberg “Last year there was a significant change through HR1 that changed Medicaid and SNAP and budget neutrality.”

xit Interviews: What Alaska's Commissioners Want the Next Governor to Know - October 15, 2026 · Oct 20, 2026

0:13

Heidi Hedberg “As I mentioned earlier, Medicaid, there is for our expansion population, which is about 47,000 Alaskans, we need to renew their eligibility every 6 months.”

xit Interviews: What Alaska's Commissioners Want the Next Governor to Know - October 15, 2026 · Oct 20, 2026