Blog

The COVID-19 pandemic put a major strain on schools, students, and parents as remote-learning temporarily replaced traditional schooling. For many Alaskan schools, this rapid shift posed a significant problem. Many communities in Alaska lack access to affordable, reliable broadband, and educators struggled to find solutions to continue providing lessons when students didn’t have access to…

Telecommunications plays a major role in the modern world. Individuals, businesses, and large agencies all rely on telecom services to connect and communicate with each other and the digital world. Many people use the internet and other telecommunication services daily, but how these technologies work can seem like a mystery if you aren’t fully immersed…

When we look at the state of global connectivity, the North American Arctic is one of the most disconnected human-inhabited locations in the world. While there are hundreds of subsea cables in service across the globe, bordering coasts and crossing oceans, the North American Arctic leaves a large gap, that so far, only Quintillion has…

Many Alaskans know that Quintillion has built a fiber optic cable system in the northern region of Alaska, but there is still much confusion on how this network fits into the big picture of bringing broadband to the Alaska Arctic. Quintillion doesn’t actually sell or provide internet services to consumers – so what does our…

In a world that is becoming increasingly more digital, enabling broadband connectivity for all Americans has become more crucial than ever before. The internet is no longer a way for people to merely enjoy online entertainment. For many Americans, the internet has become a staple in how they do life. Many people work, receive care,…

In 2021, Quintillion officially launched its High Latitude Data Acquisition (HiLDA) ground station. Located in Utqiaġvik at 72 degrees latitude, 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle. We built the ground station as a US-based downlinking solution for polar-orbiting satellite operators.  It has a 3.7-meter S/X band antenna that is available for occasional use and…

At Quintillion, protecting our equipment and data is a priority. We handle critical infrastructure, such as subsea fiber optic cables that provide internet to thousands of Alaskans, as well as a satellite downlinking facility that harbors potentially sensitive data. Service interruptions, whether due to natural causes or malicious parties, can result in serious outcomes that…

For many, outer space symbolizes the ultimate frontier. It is a place that sparks curiosity, adventure, and opportunity. In the past, this interstellar realm may have primarily served as a landscape for fantasy, but our relationship with space has changed.  While outer space still holds much of its mystique, space-based technology and communication tools have…

Humans gather a vast amount of data from space. Commercial satellite imaging companies are collecting over 100TB of satellite data per day, which equates to tens of millions of images. And there isn’t any likelihood of these numbers slowing down any time soon.  Organizations across the world, from real estate firms to large government agencies,…

From protecting the homeland to fighting wars abroad, the U.S military relies on technology in space to be competitive, as well as to safeguard the United States from potential threats. American adversaries, Russia and China, aren’t slowing down in the race to push the limits of space technology. Just in the last year, we’ve already…

Space is a frontier for human exploration and opportunity. From stepping foot on the moon to launching satellites into orbit, humans continue to push the limits of how we can better understand space and utilize it to advance life on Earth.  We’ve come leaps and bounds from 1958 when the first satellite was launched into…

From the Department of Defense to national research institutes, organizations across the United States rely on data from space to make critical decisions about life on Earth. Through remote sensing, satellites capture data and images of the globe from above. This information makes its way back to the Earth through the process of downlinking it to…