The Alaska Marine Highway System has added Wi-Fi service for passengers aboard the state ferry Columbia - with other ships in the fleet to follow.
The service, which initially will be free on the Columbia, started last month when the ship came out of a yearlong layup to take over the weekly run between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska when the Kennicott was pulled for its own yearlong layup for new generators.
The Columbia is the only state ferry serving Wrangell, with a northbound stop on Sundays and a southbound visit on Wednesdays.
It's the first Alaska Marine Highway vessel "to provide free Wi-Fi access ship-wide, including the solarium, lounges, staterooms and bar, as well as crew quarters and crew dining areas," according to the state's Dec. 26 announcement.
"Over 450 users connected during the first week in service, demonstrating high demand for onboard connectivity."
One of those users was Ketchikan Rep. Ortiz, who told Alaska public radio that the purser's announcement that passengers could log onto onboard Wi-Fi came as a surprise - but he was more than happy to spend some of the voyage streaming "Suits" on Netflix.
"It was amazingly effective. It worked quite well," he said. "Everything from streaming videos like you can at home, to receiving phone calls, to making phone calls. It was really quite good."
A $5 million federal grant last year will pay for the Wi-Fi equipment and installation on the entire fleet, with the Aurora and LeConte next in line for the work. The state has to come up with $1.25 million to receive the federal aid.
"We're looking at three to six months for Aurora and LeConte," Sam Dapcevich, state Department of Transportation spokesman, said Dec. 26.
"During overhauls it will be added to the rest of the fleet. We anticipate all the vessels will be outfitted inside of two years," he added.
Though the service will be free during start-up aboard the Columbia, users later will need to pay a fee, similar to the cost charged by airlines, a spokesman for the ferry service said last fall. The fee has not been announced.
Dapcevich said outfitting the Columbia cost about $400,000.
The Wi-Fi project supports the ferry system's "broader vision to enhance passenger experience and attract more travelers," according to last week's announcement.
The fleet already has wireless service for its operating systems and limited service for crew.
Bringing the signal to every area of the 51-year-old Columbia wasn't as easy as adding wireless to a home or office.
Installation "required overcoming significant technical and logistical challenges," the Dec. 26 announcement said. "Distributing secure wireless access throughout the steel-constructed Columbia posed additional hurdles. The project required running thousands of feet of cable, strategically placing 37 access points during the vessel's overhaul in the Ketchikan shipyard."
The Wi-Fi service is beamed in and out of the ship from Starlink's low-Earth-obit satellites, avoiding signal interference that the region's mountainous terrain causes for land-based towers.
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