LUTHERAN QUILTERS – Members of the Quilts for Comfort Group stand between pews draped with some of the 205 quilts they made, in the Sitka Lutheran Church Tuesday. The group made the quilts for five local non-profits and one in Anchorage. The remaining quilts are sent to Lutheran World Relief which distributes them to places around the world in need, such as Ukraine, as part of Personal Care Kits. Pictured are, from left, Helen Cunningham, Kathleen Brandt,Vicki Swanson, Paulla Hardy, Kim Hunter, Linda Swanson and Sue Fleming. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
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Daily Sitka Sentinel
Speaker Relates Alaska Phone Revolution
By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
“We’re in the magic business,” Ed Cushing, president of the Alaska Telephone Association, told the Chamber of Commerce Wednesday.
Cushing, originally from Sitka and now division manager for Ketchikan Public Utilities, was marveling at the evolution of technology over the last 40 years in the Alaska telecommunications business, the topic of his 45-minute talk at the weekly Chamber meeting.
“It’s incomprehensible to hear – just as 20 to 30 years from now there will be things incomprehensible to us,” he said.
Cushing was one of some 150 telecommunications industry members attending ATA’s convention here this week.
Ed Cushing speaks at the Sitke Chamber of Commerce meeting Wednesday at the Westmark. (Sentinel Photo)
Although Cushing left Sitka in 1983 intending to return soon, his telecommunications career has taken him to posts in Anchorage, Kalispell, Mont., Ellensburg, Wash., and then Ketchikan, where he has lived the past seven years.
He stressed the need for good telecommunications systems in order for communities to be successful, as well as the sizable financial barriers to making improvements.
Asked what Sitka needs to do to improve telecommunications from Sitka’s “pretty good” system to Ketchikan’s more advanced capabilities, Cushing said some towns like Ketchikan have benefited from providing service to a huge number of tourists needing cell service. Verizon – roughly 32 percent of the wireless market – pays fees to KPU when its customers use wireless service in Ketchikan. Ketchikan’s sleek system was built to meet Verizon’s specifications, Cushing said today.
“You need to attract another 850,000 tourists,” he told the Chamber. “It’s sheer economics, the numbers (in communities like Sitka) don’t work.”
Just providing basic service to all of Alaska’s communities has been a feat in itself, Cushing said.
In 1972, party lines were widely in use in the state and across many parts of the country. In 1979, more than 200 Alaska communities lacked basic local telephone service, a number brought to nearly zero by the late 1980s.
ATA was founded in 1949, just prior to statehood, by Sitka Telephone Company owner Martha Cushing, her brother-in-law Dick (Ed’s father) and David Finn of the Anchorage Telephone Company.
At the time only the largest Alaska communities had local telephone systems and several of those communities lacked any connection to the long-distance network, using local telephone systems to place local-only telephone calls, ATA’s website says. “Many lacked the ability to place a simple telephone call.”
ATA was founded out of a belief that the state’s economic future was directly dependent upon the development and statewide availability of affordable local and long-distance telephone services; and that concentrated and collective efforts of a strong statewide telephone association would ensure government attention to and corporate investment in Alaska’s network infrastructure, the ATA website says.
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Advertisement: Tea-Licious Tea House & Bakery 315 Lincoln Street Grand Opening! Freshly Baked Scones, Cakes & Pastries Innovative Salads, Soups & Sandwiches Harney & Sons Tea. Lunch * Afternoon Tea * Supper.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Photo caption: National Republican Chairman George Bush takes a drink of water offered by Jan Craddick, Sitka delegate, during the Republican convention held here. Mrs. Craddick explained to Bush that the water was from Indian River, which means, according to local legend, that he will return.