There’s a new claim on the northernmost deployment of 5G. Alaska-based telecom provider GCI and Ericsson plan to bring 5G service to that state's largest city of Anchorage by the first half of 2020.

“Anchorage will be only the 22nd city in the world to deploy Ericsson’s 5G technology,” said Ron Duncan, CEO and founder of the regional network operator, at a press event in Anchorage. Joined by elected officials and Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm, Duncan announced that “Alaska’s first real standards-based 5G mobile wireless network” is already under development.

“This is exciting news for Alaska,” Duncan added. “Communications providers around the globe are just beginning to deploy standards-based 5G technology in major urban center.”

He described the move to 5G as “one of the biggest initiatives in GCI’s history,” requiring “tens of millions” of dollars in investment in Anchorage alone. When GCI’s entire 5G footprint is deployed next year in Anchorage it will cover an area larger than Rhode Island, Duncan explained.

Ericsson's Ekholm said the continued partnership with GCI will “bring 5G to the last frontier."

“But with this announcement, actually GCI joins what I would call an elite group of operators that are going to be early to launch 5G," Ekholm said. "So maybe it’s time to rephrase and not call Alaska the last frontier, but rather the first frontier.”

Ekholm described 5G as a “platform for innovation” and the “backbone of digitalization” that will become part of a critical infrastructure, but he admits that even Ericsson isn’t sure what 5G will enable. “We don’t know what the use cases exactly will be with 5G yet, but what we know is that 10-times speed, 10-times lower latency, 100-times more connected devices per surface area will allow a lot of innovation.”

Duncan offered a less technical assessment. “5G is going to be really, really fast, and it will be everywhere,” he said. “The goal of 5G is that when you run the speed test the phone’s going to melt in your hand. So that’s my standard for success on 5G.”

To date, 12 commercially available 5G networks are now operational, Ekholm said. “Ericsson provides equipment to nine of them and actually in five of them we are the only provider," he added.

GCI has invested more than $3 billion in its statewide network during its 40-year history, Duncan said. The operator has more than 2,000 employees, 30 retail stores, and serves 240 communities, including 84 rural communities in western Alaska.

The operator’s push to 5G will be among many accomplished firsts. GCI constructed the first undersea fiber optic cable linking Alaska to the rest of the country; it deployed some of the first LTE services over satellite; and its 1 Gb/s fixed network can reach more than 80% of Alaskans, according to Duncan. The 5G network in Anchorage will serve as a model for GCI’s network modernization efforts, he said. “The new network will be completed in 2020, with initial 5G service commencing in the first half of that year.”