Rural Customers Say MTA Cancellation Plan Leaves Them Stranded

Officials with the Matanuska Telephone Association (MTA) have asked the Federal Trade Commission (FCC) to let them shut down telephone service to customers in a rural part of the Mat-Su Borough, a move Borough officials and users say will leave them stranded and without other phone options.

MTA’s Fixed Wireless program, officially known as Basic Exchange Telecommunications Radio Service (BETRS), currently serves about 215 customers in the Borough’s rural western region as well as into the Denali Borough, an area of about 2,000 square miles with no road system.

But the BETRS system is “beginning to show signs of failure,” and since other providers cover the region and the association has left the cellular tower business, MTA’s FCC filing states, “MTA must discontinue the service.”

The FCC must grant MTA permission before they can end the service. Before approving such applications the commission examines other service available in the area and public comment submitted via their website or mail, among other factors. MTA submitted the filing in mid-December.

In response to the MTA filing both Fixed Wireless users in that area and Borough officials have filed requests with the FCC to halt MTA from shutting down the service. They say not only are MTA’s claims that there is other reliable phone communication in the region false, but shutting down the BETRS service will crush the region’s economy and cause a major safety hazard. Tourism and farming industries use the area, and the annual Iditarod and Irondog races pass through the region.

“People like myself own businesses … and inability to communicate means I don’t have a business,” said Mike Williams, who owns EagleSong Family Peony Farm. “This is not just a handful of people west of the Susitna River. It impacts everyone who sets foot west of the Susitna River.”

Although MTA officials in a Feb. 24 column in the Frontiersman wrote that satellite phone service is “available to virtually all customers currently receiving Fixed Wireless service,” and that customers can purchase a booster antenna for other cell service, Williams said neither of those options are reliable.

The booster, which Williams said is meant to increase reception for Verizon, is expensive and not guaranteed to work. And the satellite service, which is provided by HughesNet, costs $1,500 for installation, $100 a month for service and isn’t reliable due to terrain, he said.

Borough officials asked the FCC to require MTA to continue to provide the service for at least a year, require confirmation that service from alternative provides does actually work before granting permission to shut BETRS down and extend the public notice period on MTA’s original filing so that more residents can weigh in.

About 10 comments were submitted to the FCC regarding MTA’s request, including Williams’ and the Borough’s. Public comments were due Feb. 28.

Williams also questioned whether or not MTA qualifies to receive federal grants for providing rural service, including the Alaska Plan FCC grant from which he said they get $17 million a year, if they are not providing BETRS and instead leave users stranded.

“Is MTA living up to their obligation to get that funding?” he said. “At a minimum I don’t think they are living up to the intent of it.”

Borough Assemblyman Randall Kowalke, whose area includes the region set to lose service, said he wants MTA to truly solve the coverage problem before pulling out.

“I want them to not cut that service off for at least a year … and require MTA to come up with a real, workable solution,” he said.