{"id":49536,"date":"2019-06-18T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/final-frontier-becoming-first-frontier-5g-service-is-coming-to-alaska\/"},"modified":"2019-06-18T15:07:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T23:07:57","slug":"final-frontier-becoming-first-frontier-5g-service-is-coming-to-alaska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/final-frontier-becoming-first-frontier-5g-service-is-coming-to-alaska\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Frontier becoming First Frontier: 5G service is coming to Alaska"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t<p>New 5G wireless network service is coming to Alaska by 2020, starting in Anchorage before making its way to other cities, GCI announced in a press conference Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gci.com\/wireless\/5g\" target=\"_blank\">g in 5G stands for generation, which means 5G is the fifth generation of mobile network <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gci.com\/wireless\/5g\" target=\"_blank\">technology<\/a>. The main difference between widely used 4G LTE technology and 5G is that 5G is faster. LTE stands for long term evolution; it&rsquo;s sort of a half-step between 4G and 5G.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FGCIAK%2Fvideos%2F464240900816119%2F&#038;show_text=0&#038;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" allowFullScreen=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>&ldquo;5G is going to be really, really fast, and it will be everywhere,&rdquo; said GCI founder and CEO Ron Duncan during an announcement held at Alaska Pacific University&rsquo;s Grant Hall in Anchorage. &ldquo;The goal of 5G is when you run the speed test, the phone is going to melt in your hand. That&rsquo;s my standard of success for 5G.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><ins>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/gci-partners-with-think-tank-for-series-about-a-global-arctic\/\" target=\"_blank\">GCI partners with think tank for series about a suddenly global Arctic<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>GCI is partnering with the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson for the project that will make Anchorage the first city in Alaska to offer the technology.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/04\/09\/tech\/5g-network-us-cities\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Currently, only a few dozen major U.S. cities<\/a>, like Houston, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas offer the service.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-attachment in-story\"><a href='https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/17340765_web1_160712Pokemon1.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" src=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/17340765_web1_160712Pokemon1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"Jennifer Miller, 18, and Gavin Blood, 22, catch Pok&#233;mon while playing Pok&#233;mon Go in this June 2016 file photo. 5G mobile network service which GCI announced Tuesday is coming to Alaska, will result in faster device speeds. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire File)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/17340765_web1_160712Pokemon1.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/17340765_web1_160712Pokemon1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/17340765_web1_160712Pokemon1-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/17340765_web1_160712Pokemon1-640x426.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/17340765_web1_160712Pokemon1-1200x798.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/17340765_web1_160712Pokemon1-1920x1277.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1199px) 98vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"p-exclude\">Jennifer Miller, 18, and Gavin Blood, 22, catch Pok&#233;mon while playing Pok&#233;mon Go in this June 2016 file photo. 5G mobile network service which GCI announced Tuesday is coming to Alaska, will result in faster device speeds. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire File)<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t<p>Ericsson President and CEO of Ericsson B&#246;rje Ekholm said it might be time to call Alaska the First Frontier instead of the Last Frontier.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Duncan said bringing 5G service to Alaska will take an investment of &ldquo;tens of millions&rdquo; of dollars. The network is expected to be completed by 2020 with early service starting in the first half of next year, Duncan said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Over the next &ldquo;several years&rdquo; Duncan said 5G service will spread to other communities in Alaska, including Juneau.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>&ldquo;Anchorage is the first place we&rsquo;re going to start this because it&rsquo;s the biggest city,&rdquo; Duncan said in response to a question from the Empire about 5G making its way to Southeast. &ldquo;We anticipate 5G will expand to at least all the fiber-served areas of the state. If it&rsquo;s up and operating in Anchorage by 2020, over the next several years I would expect we will pick up in Juneau and Fairbanks and the other communities served by fiber.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Ekholm said it&rsquo;s not exactly clear how 5G&rsquo;s increased speeds, reduced latency and ability to support billions of devices will be used.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>He said that was also the case with its predecessor, 4G, which led to the advent of making payments with mobile devices among other developments.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>It has been reported by outlets, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-44871448\" target=\"_blank\">including the BBC<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2019\/03\/28\/how-5g-is-crucial-for-autonomous-cars-and-connected-smart-cities_partner\/\" target=\"_blank\">Salon<\/a>, that 5G may be critical to the development of autonomous cars.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Ekholm did not specifically mention that possibility but said he expects 5G will lead to new developments.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>&ldquo;5G will be a platform for innovation,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz also spoke during the press conference and said he was pleased by the news.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p>&ldquo;The motto of Alaska is North to the Future and what that means is we&rsquo;re supposed to embrace innovation, we&rsquo;re supposed to try new things,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><hr \/><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><b>\u2022 Contact reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.<\/b><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<p><hr \/><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nuthin&rsquo; but a 5G thing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":49537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-49536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49536","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\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49536"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=49536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}