10-15-26 RDC Breakfast: An Update from Alaska's Broadband Companies

Okay. I am very excited to introduce this outstanding panel of experts and an experienced moderator leading today's discussion. So I want to welcome Megan Webb with GCI. She is an RDC board member, and she will serve as our moderator for today for our discussion and questions. Ms. Webb joined GCI in 2020.

In her role as Senior Director of Corporate Communications at GCI, Ms. Webb is a strategic leader responsible for shaping and executing GCI's internal and external communication strategy. Sounds like a big job to me. Next, we're pleased to welcome Francis La Chapelle, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at MTA Solutions, Alaska's largest locally owned telecommunications provider. With over 25 years in Alaska telecom, he has worked at the intersection of telecom infrastructure, Arctic connectivity, broadband strategy, energy and emerging technology with a focus on helping Alaska serve as a critical digital bridge between North America and the wider world. Beyond his role at MTA, Francis advises ventures at the edge of communications and sensing technologies, including Montis Corporation and Quantum Kinetics.

Also joining us today is Tony Dodge, who leads Alaska Communications Network strategy, planning, and development. Excuse me, deployment. He is focused on building a stronger, more efficient network through modernization, automation, and continuous improvement. Tony also leads efforts to expand fiber and fixed wireless services, helping connect more Alaskans to reliable broadband. Dodge has played a key role in securing broadband grant funding that supports internet access in underserved communities across the state.

With more than 20 years of engineering and telecommunications experience in Alaska, he brings deep technical and industry expertise to his work.

Tony earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Rounding out our impressive panel today is Aaron Helmrichs, Vice President of Corporate Development at GCI, Alaska's largest telecommunications provider, where he leads strategic transactions, infrastructure initiatives, mergers and acquisitions, and growth opportunities across the state. Aaron's work focuses on advancing broadband through terrestrial fiber, microwave, and satellite connectivity while collaborating with industry partners, government entities, Alaska Native organizations, and local communities. In recent years, he has helped guide GCI broadband equity, access, and deployment, or BEAD initiatives, strategic network investments, satellite partnerships, and post-acquisition integration efforts supporting connectivity in some of Alaska's most remote regions. We're very excited to have this panel today and look forward to hearing what they have to say.

For format, please be advised that we'll begin with Alaska Communications presentation followed by GCI and MTA, and then Megan will moderate questions immediately after. Following the presentation, time permitting, we'll open the floor for questions. I would like to welcome— please join me in welcoming Tony Dodge, who'll begin our program. Thank you.

Okay, can you hear me? All right, thanks for having me here. Um, green button. Okay, so as was introduced, Tony Dodge, Alaska Communications. So get going.

About us, hopefully everybody here knows who Alaska Communications is. We're a statewide broadband and managed IT provider. Uh, listen, we've been here for 120 years. Been around in multiple different names. So a little bit about our network.

Heavy fiber-based, 150,000 miles of fiber across the state. Our backbone and middle mile is very much fiber-based. We have two subsea cables connecting us to the lower 48 and provide, like I said, statewide network operations 24/7, NOX. All those good things. A little about BEAD.

I know everybody wants to talk about BEAD, what BEAD means for ACS. We won a $124 million grant that has about a $25 million match on our part as well. It's multiple communities around the state, all in about 9,100 locations, but that number I don't think really touches the amount of geographical area we will touch. There's going to be quite a bit of other areas associated with that. But you can see, you know, we're as north as Fort Yukon and as far south as Akhiak on Kodiak Island.

And really what the focus here is, is— I think we have to— yeah. So here's the communities. The focus for ACS was to— really modernize the network that we already serve. We're already the ILEC in most of these communities, and like I said, these are areas where our fiber infrastructure middle mile is already there. This is going to be the last mile component of it.

There are a couple areas where we start to expand our network. 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. So I think that's a good positive for ACSM state.

As I said a minute ago, 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. So That's kind of the basement of what we'll be touching. We'd like to invest even more than this, and we're working through that today.

Typical— we did talk about, you know, the speeds are, you know, the speed requirement is 100/20, but we provide up to 1 gig services here in the more dense urban areas. We also provide 2.5 gig services. So we're committing to 1, but the reality of the situation is in places like Fairbanks, and Anchorage will continue our 2.5 gig. And then we have plans starting about $80.

So the way that ACS came at this, so one of the things that NTA wanted to do was really make sure that we were building a network in the most efficient way, you know, uh, essentially the, the best cost associated with that. So ideally what we would've done was all fiber to the prem, all fiber completely. But the reality of the situation is Some of these areas are so hard to get to that it would have pushed our grant 5 times what it was. We would have essentially taken up all of the BID money that was given to the state or that ABO actually released. So really our attempt was to tackle it with fixed wireless.

We have a great partnership with Tarrana. So our split is about 50/50. The idea is that the fiber is in the more dense areas. So areas where, you know, we have, uh, needs for, uh, layer 2 services or, um, a lot of commercial services. I think a lot of people in this room, uh, your needs too would also drive where we would want to bring fiber as well.

The fixed wireless, we, we provide a fixed wireless product of 300/100. So it's certainly great service for residential. And that's really sort of the thinking here.

So what success looks like for us, certainly more services, more locations served. I talked about the 9,000 plus the 12,000 additional. Like I said, that's the basement. We certainly— ACS is a company that serves— we pass 200,000 locations in the state, so you can imagine there's a lot more for us to do here. Scalable infrastructure, talked about fiber, trying to get to multi-gig services.

You know, that, that is the pinnacle. That's where we want to go with this kind of stuff. And then faster deployment options. Fiber takes us, you know, we have a year of planning, a year of implementation. You know, from the day, if I say go on fiber today, we're 2 years out before we can actually bring it to you.

Fixed wireless allows us to get there in like 6 months. So there's a lot of options here that fixed wireless brings us. Better network utilization, you know, the ultimate goal is to modernize our network, overbuild our old plant, get better services to everybody here. And then platform for growth. So again, leverage BID to help the private sector everybody in this room.

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.

And then 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. So— and then obviously, as part of that, we're working pretty close with all the communities. And we will love to share updates along the way.

So that is me. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. Since Tony did such a great job talking about the timelines of BEAD, I will not be duplicative in my efforts so we can keep this moving forward. So good morning, and thank you for everyone for the opportunity to be here. As I walk through the presentation here, I want to really focus on how GCI is closing the digital divide in Alaska. You'll hear about some of the challenges, what's fundamentally different about the state, which I think will resonate a lot with this room.

And then what's just due to the fact that distances are greater, communities are smaller, more isolated, and the cost of deployment and construction is significantly higher.

But I don't want to lessen the fact that the opportunity for impact here is also significant. Over the last number of decades, and especially within the last few years, broadband has become an essential infrastructure for education, healthcare, public and safety, defense, economic development, in everyday life. So this morning I'll briefly discuss through how GCI has approached the overall challenges, what we've built, and where we're going next. That will touch on GCI in Alaska. One of my favorite photos I inserted in here because it shows the— just the breadth and depth of what living in Alaska means.

So 1,800 employees, $5.1 billion invested of GCI has invested into the state. We are a vertically integrated provider with wireless, internet, and local long-distance services. And we've been— we serve more than 240 communities across the state. Anchorage, Alaska. And we've been doing this for more than 40 years, not quite 120, but as a competitive LEC, we've brought a lot of good competition and overall services for the state.

The metrics here aside, one of the things that I want to focus on is really just not the scale of the company and what we've done, but the more important point for me is just continuity behind it, because building a network is only the beginning. You then have to operate it. You have to maintain it. You have to upgrade it. And of course, with Alaska and our winters and tough terrain, it has to be repaired year after year.

So kind of going into some of the challenges and the overall network and both some couple recent projects and touch on BEAD.

As we know here within this room, one of the things and why I love this slide here for audiences that don't really realize that Alaska, how big of a state we are. And with that, with the rugged terrain, the climate, and also we have one of the toughest permitting regimes in the state, which is both good and tough with it when it comes to timelines. And then, of course, the high cost of deployment and just overall operations across— to be able to respond appropriately for a statewide network.

One of the things that I want to touch on here is because our— the size and breadth of the state is that it just doesn't take one technology to provide reliable broadband services. GCI has always utilized a large tool belt or toolkit. We focus on fiber as the backbone and then leverage hybrid microwave fiber systems as well as satellite systems to bring the overall services depending on location and what's necessary to, to provide those services.

And then here's some just kind of an overview of the fiber optic cable we have throughout the state, the two subsea cables that we have to CONUS or the lower 48, as well as the microwave systems, wireless towers throughout the state, and also satellite infrastructure. One of the key points when we look at GCI's overall, over, um, broadband infrastructure footprint is that, um, more than 97% of Alaskans live within our network footprint. And, uh, of those, 80, more than 81% have access to up to 2.5 gigs of connectivity. And so we're, we're very proud of the infrastructure that we've invested into to bring that to bear.

So to kind of touch on some of the recent projects that we've brought to bear to close the digital divide, 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. And it's a good illustration of what it really does take to close the digital divide in rural Alaska.

Also touches on the fact that it's a multi-year effort. In particular for this project here included marine fiber construction, multiple local fiber to the prem networks within each community, and of course the associated channel— challenges with overall permitting, land access for easements, logistics associated with this. Federal agency engagement, tribal partner engagement, and just the overall sustained coordination required across numerous communities that are separated by significant distance.

Very similar to the AUH Aleutians is our IHOOC network, which began with a partnership with Bethel Native Corporation. Who has been central to our work and progress in western Alaska to advance the level of broadband connectivity within that rural region. And we followed a similar philosophy of middle-mile fiber with fiber to the prem of homes and businesses.

So then on the future projects with B.E.E.D., as, as touched on with a bit with Tony, 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. So a lot of what we work through is around being able to provide multi— multi-technology and rings associated with it.

Here's a more detailed view of the broader BID/IHOC network expansion. Anchorage, Alaska. One of the key points here that I want to touch on is that we are not approaching individual communities as isolated projects. Whenever possible, we are building on our existing regional investments and adding infrastructure that allows us to expand the broadband coverage while also strengthening the overall network through Rings for Resiliency.

We also included several grants to expand infrastructure within Anchorage. And what I want to note here, just as a reminder for all of us, right, is that while most of my discussion has focused on rural Alaska, we can't forget that the digital divide exists everywhere, and it isn't based on how far you're from Anchorage. So even gaps exist today within our largest urban areas due to just high-cost technical challenges to close conventional investment. And so through BEAD, we were able to make several material projects, be able to move forward with those through BEAD funding.

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

So in closing, thank you for your time here. Really, I want to close with these points around Alaska's digital divide cannot be solved with a single technology. It is encompassing of fiber, microwave, satellite, and wireless, which all of them have a role to play in a sustainable and reliable network for broadband services. Second, the work doesn't end when the construction is complete. Advancing broadband in Alaska means delivering reliable and affordable service, maintaining the network, and continuing to invest as technology and community needs evolve.

And lastly, as I said at the beginning, broadband is now considered an essential service for everyday life, whether we're talking about home internet, business connectivity, remote healthcare, or education, to include wireless services. As I see a number of phones sitting on tables out there, how it would impact your productivity if those weren't functional. GCI has invested in Alaska for more than 40 years, and we will continue building upon that foundation. Thank you, and I look forward to the panel discussion.

Good morning, everybody.

I think before I start, I just wanted to share— Connor and I were talking when I first sat down this morning, and we were talking about Alaska and how much sort of the culture of Alaska folks coming out to help each other and work with each other. And I think, you know, when you're sitting listening to a bunch of presentations by different companies like this, you get the sense that each one of us stands alone and we're all out there competing against each other and getting grant money to go do things and split the market up. And I think in reality, it's probably not unlike a lot of what you guys do, what we all do up here, right? I think the telecoms in Alaska are probably each other's biggest customers, right? We have infrastructure that we share, that we swap, that we buy and sell to each other.

That includes last mile, you know, getting to a particular location in a city or a town. It also includes middle mile and long haul. And so we're a lot more sort of overlapped and interconnected than you get a sense of when we stand up here and show you maps and diagrams and pictures and all the cool stuff that we have and that we're doing. And I think it's just important to keep in mind that, you know, telecom in Alaska is more of a group effort than it is individuals going out there and attacking problems all on our own. We advocate jointly just like you guys do.

We work on shaping policy and work on shaping and reacting to regulations just like all the rest of you guys do as well. And so that's an important thing I think to keep in mind. 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 and also the other companies that are in Alaska that aren't on this panel today. So, anyway, I just wanted to start with that to make sure that we— that everybody sort of gets a sense that we're closer than we are separate in what we're doing here, I think.

MTA. So I'm going to split the middle. We're at 73 years. So we beat GCI, but I can't get to 120. We are a co-op, and that means we're member-owned.

And it makes a big difference in terms of the culture of the company, and our priorities and how we plan and what we do. You know, our goal is to meet our membership's requirements for technology and connectivity. And so that's what we do. That's what all 400 of our employees do. We've got about 33,000 residential customers.

That doesn't include the corporations, the small business, the government, state government, federal government, you name it, et cetera. But our membership, the ones who get co-op voting rights and are part of the cooperative, if you will, our owners are 33,000. We're headquartered out in Palmer, Alaska, and our service area is all the way from Tyonek and Beluga to halfway to Glennallen. Includes then Eagle River, Wasilla, Palmer, and then all the way up to Anderson. So that's where we're a phone company.

That's where we are— excuse me— where our service area has historically been. Over the last 10 years, we expanded our network to cover the entirety of the south-central road system. And so we have diversity in rings and between Fairbanks and Delta and Glenallen, and then back into the Palmer area, and then all the way up the Parks Highway as well. And that allows us to provide services along that entire route, but also provide diversity and connectivity for organizations in all of those locations. In the last 8 years or so, we have built a network through Canada.

And we provide service in Seattle, Portland, and Chicago, and on the state's first terrestrial network, which we believe is a very important for the state of Alaska in terms of regional diversity and as an operational diversity for our aging subsea systems that we have serving, connecting Alaska to everywhere else. So that's sort of the MTA claim to fame, I guess, if you will. And it's probably the reason that we're up here. There's a lot of telcos in Alaska, as you guys know. But MTA is, aside from ACS and GCI, MTA is the only other long-haul provider connecting Alaska to the lower 48, and that has sort of put us in a position to be able to provide the kinds of services that we're providing to our membership, and then as well as to government and enterprise.

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. And we, you know, the bead calculations, the bead project for each of us was to go after the locations that we— that were, you know, in various service areas and try to maximize the number of locations you could hit and minimize the average cost per location. And so that's what we did.

And 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.

This is the breakdown for the locations that we are adding in our network. And I think what you see is that the— As far as MTA is concerned, 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.

And finally, you know, with 17% of the statewide grant funds, we are going to hit almost a quarter of the statewide locations. And our matching funding was a full 50% of what the State Broadband Office observed or received. So we are pretty proud of that. I think what this represents for MTA is an acceleration of our existing annual investment program to build fiber to as much of our customer base as we possibly can. And so the BEAD funding has allowed us to move that much quicker over the next 4 years as we deploy this BEAD program and and accelerate what we already had in place for plans for building fiber to the home.

So, and with that, I will stop and let's get to questions.

All right. We're crushing it on time. Good morning, everyone. And that was a nice level set, Francis. I appreciate that because a billion was allocated.

To Alaska for broadband funding. And earlier this year, as you heard, Alaska Broadband Office announced about 630 in programs and projects. So what you hear up here is just a portion of those projects happening and kickstarting here in the state. So with that, it is time to open it up for questions if you have any. I'll kind of get us started to get our wheels going.

You know, and this is very much for our audience in our room right now. When we talk about broadband as economic infrastructure, where do you see the biggest opportunity for these investments that we're hearing about this morning to unlock economic or resource development here in the state? Tony, I'll start with you. All right. Is it on?

Hello? Okay. Uh, you know, I kind of touched on it a little bit when I was speaking, but it's, it's about getting fiber to the places, to the places that you guys are at. Right. So there, there are a lot of technologies.

Erin touched on 'em, satellite, microwave. I talked about fixed wireless. Those are all things that can get us there. They can, and sometimes it's what we use in a pinch. And sometimes you do say, okay, this is what we're gonna hang our hat on.

But if we can leverage this money to get middle mile fiber to the places that matter in the state, I think that is really what is going to boost economic development. Do you want to?

Yeah, I think the only thing I would add is, yeah, through— as I touched on in some of the slides is that it takes a combination of what I call public investment, so federal grant money, BID, and private investment to really tackle some of the high cost to build infrastructure. And then you look at the region and what the connectivity needs are, and through that combination, you then solution the right infrastructure. But if you can build fiber, fiber's always your preference because it has the highest long-term value, 30 to 40 year life. It's scalable through electronics only. So once you've installed the the, the fiberglass, um, it, it will last longer from a technology standpoint than anything else out there.

So it is always a preference to build, use that to build. And through that, when I touched on, right, from when we talk about resource development, broadband isn't an option. Now it is essential when you're planning your projects. You have to think about connectivity. It's, it's just as you have to think about water food, resources to transportation, all those things.

Broadband is a piece of it. You don't stick man camps out in the middle of nowhere and say, oh, by the way, you are not going to have connectivity. That has been a long in the rear that that was ever going to be successful. So again, broadband is an essential service for everyone. Anything you want to add, Frances?

Yeah, I think— I guess what I would add would be a discussion about resiliency. You know, I think about how quickly we all— as soon as a connection is established in a community, how quickly we all move to that and it engenders immediate use and you see immediate economic benefit and you don't have to wait for software updates anymore and you can submit your payroll over the web and, you know, et cetera. And then a fiber breaks and you are down. And operations stop. I think this audience knows better than most the critical operational requirements for connectivity in remote locations can't be satisfied with a single transmission or single technology.

And so, you know, all of us up here utilize multiple, you know, you use fiber, you use satellite, you use LEO, GEO, use whatever you can to enable the resiliency that an operational requirement needs to function on a regular basis. And that's important. Everybody does that up here, right? No matter what your industry is, you've got your bases covered, and we have to do the same thing. So Alaska requires a broad toolset.

Thank you. Well said. And I'll be looking for hands if someone has a question.

And Jennifer's coming with the mic, or Lauren, whoever can get to you first.

I think, Erin, you mentioned about the aging fiber, probably especially the undersea fiber. Is that going to need to be replaced someday, or if there's enough life in it and just continue to upgrade the hardware on both ends, or at some time Gotta lay new ones.

Yeah, so great. I can take this and then Tony can possibly add some more to this. But yeah, so glass technically has a finite life. There's some complex technical terms that basically say that it should— shouldn't last more than 40 years. We've proven that it actually can.

What happens though is the age of the glass is getting outpaced by what we can do, what's called wavelengths. So multiple waves within different spectrums within light. So at some point you have to replace the cable even if it's still basically operating. Alaska actually has— GCI has one and ACS has one as well that are similar RFS states where they were put into operation. And both of them are considered at this point nearing end of life due to either a capacity constraint, which is basically what we're running into.

We can't upgrade the electronics due to the design of the subsea cable to the point where we can actually get more capacity out of it. So we're overrunning that point of it, not predominantly the age of the glass itself. Those cables will— need to be replaced, and I think both companies are actively working on what the next stage of the cables to CONUS or the lower 48, what that looks like. Quick follow-up on that. Would you guys work together to lay fiber together?

Do you think that would be cheaper than both two separate projects and worry about who's got the best path? There's been conversations— There's been conversations around what that may look like into the future. Future. And it's one of the— definitely one of the possibilities between either collaboration between private investment as well as public investment as a component of that. Yeah.

So I just— a few things. Really, the differentiation is terrestrial fiber versus subsea, right? So in, in terrestrial fiber, as Aaron talked about, I mean, 40 years, there's reasons to believe you can extend that by 50%, right? At some point, the glass itself just starts to break down. But the way we install terrestrial fiber too is in conduits.

You can pull that cable out, put it in a new one. You're not talking the same, same sort of lift. Subsea is a little bit different. Those have electronics. There's repeaters out in the ocean.

So it's not just about the glass anymore. It's about the electronics. Replacing a subsea fiber cable, $200 to $400 million depending on what you're looking at. So it's not necessarily something that we're probably gonna do on our own. So, It's going to take some cooperation for everybody here on the table to start to replace those.

I think you touched on it accurately. Oh, now I have Mr. Terrestrial Guy over here. I mean, that's exactly why MTA went and built the terrestrial route through Canada, right?

We saw that as important for diversity, operational diversity, we saw it as important important for longevity. As they all stated, you can replace terrestrial fiber, you can upgrade the equipment much easier, much faster. And so, you know, that's what we've done with this terrestrial network is to provide Alaska with another long-haul route out to the Lower 48. I think, Megan, one of the breakfasts needs to be a debate on subsea versus terrestrial. And then Francis and I can ask—.

West Side Story of fiber. There are other challenges. Any other questions? Yes. So good morning.

Thanks for the presentation. My question involves around— because there's a lot of residential speeds. Can you each speak to the maximum symmetrical dedicated speed you can offer businesses? Where can you offer that maximum speed, or where can you not?

So it's somewhat of an electronic-based question, but if there's fiber there, we can provide 100-gig connections. When it comes to residential, the max capacity is 2.5 gig. It's technology-based, but we're on the roadmap for 10 gig.

Yeah, look, commercial is— Unlimited. If we have fiber to your location, we can figure anything out. Uh, from a residential standpoint, I touched on a little bit, any place where we have, uh, fiber to the home, we provide 2.5 gig, uh, symmetrical. It's also on a 10 gig platform too. So we could upgrade that.

We just need interest by, um, yeah, people want people to want it. So, um, and then I, I touched on the, the fixed wireless Toronto. It's, it's 300 over 100. So it's not symmetrical. We can provide a 100/100 symmetrical package on that one as well.

And then I won't talk about DSL because nobody wanted that. Or dial-ups. Francisco. You said you have 120 years of history. Same, basically.

You know, MTAs, where we have fiber, it's unlimited. And I think our current packages are up to a gig, but we've got 5 gigs on the road roadmap as well for our residential services, where there's fiber. Great question. Question over here. Just a— I'm very curious, and that may have been touched on earlier and I missed it, but there's communications going up to Fort Yukon, and then I had heard rumors of downriver, like to Beaver, et cetera, cable or something.

And having been in that area quite a bit, I'm very curious about, like, When you have breakup, you have ice gouging in the Yukon River down 5 to 6 feet. Or if you're on terrestrial, there's— I'm just curious how that— how does that look? Yeah. How does that look? This is— We're curious too.

These two are going to heckle me. So the fiber is from the Yukon Bridge to Fort Yukon in the river.

Beaver, I can't remember the community after that, and then on to Fort Yukon. On the other side of the bridge, we're also going into Tanana, and that is on the Livengood Highway, so it will be terrestrial. There will be about maybe a couple of miles in the river, pretty much similar to what GCI does on the West Coast. So the real novel portion is that from the the highway to, or the bridge to Fort Yukon. That area is pretty shallow.

It's called the Yukon Flats for a reason, right? So there's belief that we can get the depth of bury far enough down. You know, there's a cable on the north slope that has to deal with the same thing. You know, they have ice scour. So this is a situation which I don't know that it's necessarily ice scour as much as it is during breakup.

Is it, you know, is that ice embedded down into the dirt, into the soil enough to actually get down to the cable and rip it up? I don't think that we believe in that area there would be enough ice scour to actually get down to our burial depth. So yeah. I can talk about some more technical stuff if you'd like to. Well, I appreciate everyone's thoughtful questions.

I think we are at time. So Thank you again to our panelists and their expertise. And I hope you'll walk away from the conversation that broadband is not just telecommunications, but infrastructure that supports all of our communities and businesses across our state and economy. So thanks so much. And thank you again to our panelists.

And Connor or Anna, I'll let you take over the mic.