Reforms may cut broadband to remote areas

Adak Island lies in the Bering Sea 1,200 miles from Anchorage and neither cyclone winds, tsunamis nor unexploded artillery from its days as a World War II base prevents its 326 or so residents from expecting a high-speed Internet connection to the rest of the world.

That service may end soon for some because of a fight with federal regulators over subsidies. The cost to bring mobile, high-speed Internet service to this tiny speck in the Aleutian Islands is turning into something of a test of the Federal Communications Commission’s vision of a mobile, broadband-based communications system that telephone users subsidize for the needy and hard-to-reach corners of America. “We are blessed to live in a country that promises universal communications access to all people living within its borders, no matter how remote or isolated they may be,” said Larry Mayes, CEO of Windy City Cellular, a cellphone company serving Adak Island. While Adak is about as far from the mainland as you can get and still remain in the United States, the researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey volcano laboratory, the workers at the Marine Exchange and the subsistence farmers and fishermen who live there are serviced by two cellphone companies. However, greater Adak Island and its lone policeman won’t be serviced much longer unless the FCC reassesses how much it reimburses Mayes’s company under a $4.5 billion subsidy program the commission revamped last fall to help spread broadband nationwide. The federal subsidy for Windy City Cellular was reduced in January to $22,356 from the $136,344 that the company received each month last year to contain costs — part of the rationale was that wireless service doesn’t have the same costs as traditional wire-based phone and Internet services, according to the commission.