In 2020, Omnitouch was commissioned to provide a network connectivity solution for a Mobile Network Operator servicing Alaska.

With a coastline that spans nearly 55,000 kilometres, Alaska is the largest US state but with one of the smallest populations spread across its vast and rugged terrain. The further North you go the concept of time itself seems to disappear, with months- long nightfall, followed by weeks of unending day. It is little wonder that Alaska is nicknamed "The Last Frontier'. Among the expanse of wilderness areas, unexplored mountains and glaciers, the state is also home to some 200 islands that stretch out across the Bering Sea in a vast archipelago known as the Aleutian Chain.

In our first briefing, we learned that the community of Unalaska within the Aleutian Chain was reeling from a recent tragedy: An 18 year old high school student had been on a drive one evening when her tyre blew out on a rough rural road. Telecommunications in Alaska is often unreliable, so she, like many residents in the area, carried two SIM cards with her phone. With one SIM from each of the two mobile operators, the hope is to hedge your bets and if one doesn't work, the other will.

Unable to move her car, and with an oncoming storm she had tried to phone for help, but her calls failed on both networks. Isolated and desperate for help, she walked for nearly 2.5 kilometers in the stormy darkness, tragically succumbing to hypothermia overnight. She was found the next morning, along with her mobile phone that had been utterly useless to contact help.

In the aftermath of the tragedy there was no fault found with the cellular base stations themselves, however both existing networks had a serious design flaw: The cellular core network for both operators was centralised and located outside of Unalaska.

With the snow and the storm, the satellite link that the cellular base stations use to communicate was unreachable, breaking the connection back to the core. It meant this young girl was unable to contact any help, just as her family and friends were unable to reach her, even though the were all local calls.

Understanding that launching a reliable network quickly was a matter of life and death, but knowing that erratic weather makes satellite connections unreliable, we modelled our network architecture on the geography of the Aleutian Chain itself: like a series of Islands in a larger Archipelago.

Our Australian team designed, developed and deployed the network architecture that treats each location in the network as an island with its own centralised network core. Each 'island' was designed to be self contained, but part of the larger collective network. In the event that weather or atmospheric conditions takes out satellite connection, each 'island' can still operate locally, ensuring that anyone on the local 'island' can continue to reach each other.

Experience has shown us that connections within the community are of the utmost importance - particularly in a crisis. A quick phone call to check in on a neighbour, or to a family member across town, continued to be possible on our network, even if all communication outside the area was cut off by a storm.

Ultimately, our mission in Alaska was to provide reliable connectivity for all Alaskans, and ensure that something as simple as a blown tyre doesn't become a senseless tragedy for anyone ever again. Our network island architecture has now been battle tested and proven, across some of the most challenging and remote environments in the world, ensuring that communities can still remain connected whatever the outside conditions.

‘To Whom it may concern,

I am writing to give a strong recommendation for Omnitouch. Over the past 5 years my company has interacted with dozens of vendors and consultants in the construction of our network. Many of these companies have been great to work with, but Omnitouch's competence in their field and capabilities stand out well above any of our other vendors.

X serves rural Alaska in the United States. Very rural. The very largest of our communities is just 4,000 people, on an island 800 miles from Anchorage. Our next largest is just over 1,000. We are targeting markets with communities as small as 30 people. Alaska is an enormous state, 1400 miles (2,300 km) by 2200 miles (3,600km). 1,000 mile trips are common place, and almost always by small airplane. With bears, moose, insane environmental conditions and enormous distances, reliable communications are both nearly impossible and immensely important to Alaska.

Time and again vendors had come up with proposals that simply wouldn't work in Alaska, we don't have fiber connecting everything (or anything for that matter), our backhaul is mbps, not gbps. We can't afford a massive datacenter in a village like Egegik with 39 people. For one thing, the town would have to upgrade their generator to even power it.

There are almost impossible constraints on the deployment of a network in this kind of environment.

The team at Omnitouch took the time to understand our business model, needs, limitations, and capabilities. With this information they then developed and helped us deploy the solution we needed. The techniques and methodology they have brought to our company has made our network more resilient, more capable, and provided tools that will make it possible to deploy sustainable packet core networks across the rest of Alaska.

Where every other vendor had failed to deliver a real solution to local-first high availability core infrastructure, Omnitouch has succeeded. They continue to succeed, every time we need something new or weird because of our tenuous environment, time and again they find a way to solve the puzzle for us.

I cannot overstate their capabilities; they are instrumental in our business and our communities.’