ANALYZING BROADBAND RELIABILITY Insights from Alaskan Arctic Communities

This study investigates broadband Internet reliability in underserved Alaskan communities by analyzing two years of network latency and outage data from anchor institutions. It critiques speed-based broadband definitions for omitting quality of service (QoS) metrics, exploring performance trends and impacts of major outages, including the 2023 Quintillion undersea cable cut. This research evaluates reliability across speed tiers, Internet service providers (ISPs), and regions. Alaska represents an edge case, but these empirical findings have broader implications for rural US regions, underscoring the importance of reliable connectivity for disaster resilience, socioeconomic growth, and closing the digital divide.