In his day job, Ryan Durbin guides airplanes over Anchorage. Now, his frustration with Alaska Internet access has him turning to guiding Web traffic as well.<\/p>\n
Last week, Durbin unveiled a new application that displays a live \u201cfuel gauge\u201d for GCI customers who subscribe to cap-limited Internet access.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s open-source and it\u2019s free,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to make Alaska slightly better.\u201d<\/p>\n
GCI is the most popular home Internet provider in Alaska, but most of its subscriptions are capped – use too much bandwidth, and you\u2019ll pay for it. Those caps are a source of frustration for many Alaskans, and complaints about bandwidth caps are one of the most frequent gripes about Internet access in Alaska.<\/p>\n
GCI\u2019s principal competitor, ACS, offers uncapped Internet, but ACS doesn\u2019t offer Internet service everywhere. Durbin, who lives in Eagle River, found himself frustrated by GCI\u2019s caps but unable to switch to ACS.<\/p>\n
He streams Netflix on two televisions, \u201cand even though I have the second-biggest account, it\u2019s not much data,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rather than just stay frustrated, he taught himself C#, a programming language created by Microsoft, and created a way to keep track of his usage.<\/p>\n
The application, available for Windows computers, is simple: Users log in once, and the application connects to GCI\u2019s existing \u201cfuel gauge\u201d Web portal at a set interval. The result is displayed in the task bar at the bottom of the computer\u2019s home screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time you\u2019re using your computer, it\u2019s there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
GCI spokesman David Morris said the company has no affiliation with Durbin, and all customers should be cautious about providing their login information to a third-party program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re always a little cautious about any time you download something and enter your credentials,\u201d he said, adding that the company is examining the program.<\/p>\n
The Empire examined the source code Durbin provided, and the program appears to do exactly what Durbin says on his website: \u201cThis app does not collect any of your personal information, there is no \u2018phone home\u2019 and your user name and password are only stored on your PC for the purpose of logging into your GCI account to retrieve your data.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durbin was a Web designer before he began guiding aircraft, and the program has started getting attention. It\u2019s a solution obvious in hindsight to a problem a lot of Alaskans have, he said, but \u201cit\u2019s like Dropbox,\u201d he said, \u201cyou never knew you needed it until you had it. … Now, it\u2019s like, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n
To download the program, visit http:\/\/www.allthedurbin.com\/gci-usage-app\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In his day job, Ryan Durbin guides airplanes over Anchorage. Now, his frustration with Alaska Internet access has him turning to guiding Web traffic as well. Last week, Durbin unveiled a new application that displays a live \u201cfuel gauge\u201d for GCI customers who subscribe to cap-limited Internet access. \u201cIt\u2019s open-source and it\u2019s free,\u201d he said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14500"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}