GCI Cable agrees upon terms to purchase Eyecom's Girdwood cable television facilities
By Ken Smith
Turnagain Times
GCI Cable, Inc. has waited for years to buy Eyecom Inc.'s cable television facilities in Girdwood.
Now it appears the wait is over.
GCI has come to terms with Eyecom to purchase its cable television business in Girdwood for $500,000. The agreement will be finalized if the Regulatory Commission of Alaska approves it, due no later than April 13.
“Until it's done, it's not a done deal, but we see no reason why it wouldn't go through at this point,” said GCI Cable spokesman David Morris, who lives in Girdwood.
General Communications, Inc. through various wholly owned subsidiaries is the sole owner of GCI Cable, an Alaska based company with its corporate office in Anchorage.
Eyecom is a subsidiary of TelAlaska Inc., which is a group of companies—including Interior Telephone, Mukluk Telephone, TelAlaska Long Distance, and TelAlaska NetWorks—that provides telecommunications services throughout Alaska.
In addition to Girdwood, Eyecom also provides cable service to the communities of Galena, Unalaska and Dutch Harbor.
GCI got into the cable business in 1996, and a couple of years after that, the company started talking to TelAlaska about purchasing its Girdwood cable service, which has about 500 subscribers.
American Broadband Communications purchased TelAlaska in July 2008. GCI then resumed talks to purchase Eyecom, and an agreement was finally reached late last year.
A public notice was placed in the Anchorage Daily News on Nov. 13, 2009 and a 30-day public comment period followed. Dec. 14 was the final day public comments could be filed.
Now it's up to the Regulatory Commission to issue a final decision to approve the transfer to allow GCI to take control over Eyecom's Girdwood cable television facilities.
Since it began providing cable television service to Girdwood in the 80s, Eyecom has not invested much in its facilities. An example of the lack of technical upgrades is that the cable signal is still delivered on an analog line, resulting in inconsistent picture quality.
“I don't think a lot of upgrades have been put into that (Eyecom's) system over the years,” Morris said. “We will probably put into it three times the amount of money to upgrade compared to the purchase price.”
Most cable providers have long switched to digital service, allowing for clearer channels, including high definition channels.
Morris said GCI is committed to upgrading Girdwood's cable signal to digital and offering more channels, up to 162 regular channels, as well as 39 high definition channels.
GCI will price its services to compete with entertainment services provided by Dish Network and Direct TV—two television satellite providers that offer service in Girdwood. However, satellite service can be spotty in the valley due to the surrounding mountains.
“What we plan on doing is what's called digitalizing the plant,” said Morris. “Right now there's an analog signal. Most likely the channels in Anchorage will be the channels in Girdwood. There will be a cable modem of 10MB and a lot more channels available. Obviously what we need to do is tie the systems together.”
By tying the system together, GCI will also be able to provide high speed Internet and phone service in Girdwood. Currently, ACS is the only company providing both services.
But Morris stresses that the changes won't happen immediately.
“Girdwood will not see a change in service for a year to a year-and-a-half,” he said. “One of the challenges I think we're going to have is to really contain people's expectations. But it will happen eventually. We have done that all across Alaska in some extremely remote communities throughout the state.”
