Sun outages may affect TV and radio reception

The sun’s rays may cause temporary disruption of satellite-provided cable television, Internet and long-distance telephone service February 21st through March 9th. The potential interruptions occur each year around the time of the equinoxes.

GCI has advised that customers may experience interruption to telephone calls to and from locations within Alaska, the Lower 49 states and international locations. Each outage could last up to 15 minutes. Fiber optics and Microwaves are not affected by sun outages.

GCI warns that if a cable TV outage occurs, viewers might notice a slow degradation of picture for up to 10 minutes, followed by several minutes of total disruption.

These semi-annual interruptions, called sun outages or transits, affect all satellite-based communications as the sun’s path takes it directly between the satellite and antennae on the ground.