“The transaction will allow Verizon Wireless, which currently holds no spectrum in Alaska, to provide voice, broadband data and other wireless products and services in a new service area,” the company said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, reported on the website rcrwireless.com.
Verizon, the largest wireless company in the U.S., said it intends to buy the license from Triad 700, a company that paid $1.8 million for the rights in a 2008 auction.
“Because Verizon Wireless holds no spectrum in Alaska, no competitive concerns are implicated with respect to the proposed assignment. Triad has not yet begun to provide service over the spectrum that is the subject of this application, and therefore no customers are jeopardized or will lose service as a result of this transaction. Moreover, the proposed transaction will increase competition in Alaska by allowing Verizon Wireless to enter Alaska markets as a new wireless competitor,” the FCC filing stated.
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MISSING MOON ROCKS: Elizabeth Riker, a criminal justice graduate student and member of the “Moon Rock Project” at the University of Phoenix, is trying to track down the four tiny pieces of moon rock from the Apollo 11 mission that were presented to Alaska.
The lunar rocks, encased in a lucite ball, appear to have been lost or stolen, she writes in the Capital City Weekly in Juneau.
NASA gave rocks to every state and 135 countries, she said. Riker is part of a college class that is working to track down all of the lunar rocks.
“My professor, a retired NASA Office of Inspector General Senior Special Agent, assigns his students the task of investigating unaccounted-for moon rocks that were given to the states and nations of the world. This assignment is called the “Moon Rock Project.” I was assigned the Alaskan Apollo 11 Moon Rock to investigate,” she wrote earlier this month.
The Alaska lucite ball was to be displayed by the Chugiak Gem and Mineral Society in early 1971. There is no record beyond that.
“An artifact of this nature represents an important accomplishment of our space program, and I am committed to seeing this investigation through. With help from the good citizens of Alaska, I am confident we will be successful,” Riker said.
She can be contacted at ecriker@att.net.
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GAS PIPELINE PLAN: The latest twist to the gas pipeline saga is an announcement from Energia Cura of Fairbanks for an open season to see if there is enough demand to justify a “small bore” private natural gas pipeline that would supply communities between Prudhoe Bay and Eielson Air Force Base by 2014.
The Energia Cura webiste states the company has completed a variety of projects in the Fairbanks area, including power plant and pipeline work at North Pole. The company points to studies that show there is potential for developing a project before either a bullet line to Southcentral or a large-diameter pipeline to Canada.
The principal partners of the company are Alexander Gajdos and Thomas Chapman.
Gajdos will speak with the Interior Issues Council today at 8 a.m. in the conference room of the Fairbanks Economic Development Corp. at 301 Cushman St.
A press release from the company states “this private line is the most expedient option yet identified for universally lowering the Interior’s cost of electrical power, LNG sourced natural gas and heating oil.”
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BARBECUE COOKS: The Fairbanks team that won the sixth annual Alaska State BBQ Championship in July is preparing for the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational BBQ in Lynchburg, Tenn.
You can sample their work and help them along Wednesday in the old train station behind the Daily News-Miner. The lunch is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. or as long as supplies last.
For $8, you can get a pulled pork sandwich, coleslaw, chips and soda or water.
The “Squeal-On-U-BBQ” team features Tarry Schuster, head cook, along with team members Karen and Forrest Schuster and Dakota Turner.
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