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September 14, 2005
Contact: David Morris, GCI, 265-5396 or dmorris@gci.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUN OUTAGES MAY DISRUPT CABLE TV, INTERNET AND SATELLITE-BASED TELEPHONE SERVICE IN OCTOBER
ALASKA - GCI Customers of all cable television, Internet and long-distance telephone companies utilizing satellites could experience brief disruptions in service Oct. 1 - 20 due to a seasonal solar occurrence known as a "sun outage." The outages could disrupt telephone calls to and from locations within Alaska, the Lower 49 states and international locations.
Each outage could last up to 15 minutes, although the length of the outage will vary. Land-based services such as fiber optics and microwave are not affected by sun outages.
If a cable TV outage occurs, viewers will notice a slow degradation of picture for up to 10 minutes, followed by several minutes of total disruption. The picture then slowly clears.
These semi-annual interruptions, called sun outages or transits, affect all satellite-based communications and occur when the sun is located directly behind the satellite and in line with the antenna on the ground. At that point, the noise energy from the sun is often greater than the communication signal level and may result in loss of signal.
GCI (NASDAQ: GNCMA) is the largest telecommunications company in Alaska. A pioneer in bundled services, GCI provides local, long distance and wireless telephone, cable television, Internet and data communications services throughout Alaska. More information about the company can be found at www.gci.com
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