Though

Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...

is a

United States territory In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...

, some U.S. long-distance plans and courier services list Guam as an international location. As a result of Guam's being added to the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) in 1997, calls made to the U.S., Canada, or other participating countries from Guam (or to Guam from other NANP locations) only require the caller to dial a 1 followed by the area code. In this way, only domestic charges are incurred between the US and Guam on most carriers. Before Guam's inclusion, calling the U.S. required dialing the international 011 first, thus resulting in higher long-distance rates and less frequent calls to the U.S. by relatives in Guam. Prices of long-distance calls to these destinations have dropped significantly to the point where now calling the U.S. from Guam or calling Guam from the U.S. costs the same.

Mail

Some companies in the U.S. mainland still treat Guam as a foreign country and refuse to sell and ship items to Guam. However, if an item is shipped via USPS, shipping costs to Guam are the same as coast-to-coast shipping costs within the US. Many others will ship to Guam but will charge the shipping as an international destination. This is mainly because the company is using a private shipping company like UPS, FedEx, or DHL for its shipping. Much of the mail to and from Guam routes through Hawaii and awaits cargo space on United Airlines which is contracted to deliver mail between Hawaii and Guam.

Telephones

Telephones – main lines in use: 85,000 (2007) Telephones – mobile cellular: 98,000 (2007) Telephone system: : ''domestic:'' GTA: ~70,000 local access lines, dial-up and DSL, Internet, long-distance service, TDMA and GSM wireless services via Pulse Mobile & Docomo Pacific (formerly Guam Wireless) ChoicePhone LLC, dba iConnect with iDen, GSM and 4G LTE networks. : ''international:''

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

earth stations – 2

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly Intel-Sat, Intelsat) is a Luxembourgish-American multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons, Virginia, United States. Originally formed ...

(Pacific Ocean); submarine cables to United States, Japan and Australia. : ''international access code:'' +1.671 (in the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is an integrated telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1, World Numbering Zone ...

Area code 671 The area code 671 is the local telephone area code of the United States territory of Guam. It was created with the beginning of permissive dialing on July 1, 1997, replacing Guam's previous International Telecommunication Union country code 671 at ...

)

Radio and television

Radio

broadcast Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

stations: AM 4, FM 7,

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...

2 (2005) Radios: 300,000 (2007) Television broadcast stations: 8 (2007) Televisions: 200,000 (2007)

Internet

Internet Service Provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

s (ISPs): 4 (2013)

Country code A country code is a short alphanumeric identification code for countries and dependent areas. Its primary use is in data processing and communications. Several identification systems have been developed. The term ''country code'' frequently re ...

(Top-level domain): GU

Submarine cables

Because of its location in the western Pacific and its status as U.S. territory, Guam has one of the most extensive

submarine communications cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables were laid beginning in the 1850s and car ...

infrastructures in the Asia-Pacific. The

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

cut many of the primary cables connecting the United States and Asia, prompting companies to look for alternate locations for new cables. In 2019, GTA Teleguam and RTI Cable built the island's first combined neutral cable landing station and data center. This coincided with a bill introduced to the

Legislature of Guam The Legislature of Guam () is the law-making body for the United States territory of Guam. The unicameral legislative branch consists of fifteen senators, each serving for a two-year term. All members of the legislature are elected at-large with ...

by Sen. Telo Taitague to conduct an economic study and develop policy recommendations on submarine cables. GTA also seeks to attract U.S. companies to build data centers on Guam, noting the reduced

network latency Network delay is a design and performance characteristic of a telecommunications network. It specifies the latency for a bit of data to travel across the network from one communication endpoint to another. It is typically measured in multiples ...

from Asia to Guam, compared to the U.S. Existing cable landing stations and their cables are: * Tanguisson cable landing station in

Tamuning Tamuning, also known as Tamuning-Tumon-Harmon (), is a village located on the western shore of the United States territory of Guam. The village of Tamuning is the economic center of Guam, containing tourist center Tumon, Harmon Industrial Park, ...

: Asia-America Gateway, Australia–Japan Cable and Guam-Philippines * Tumon Bay cable landing station in Tamuning: TPC-5CN, Australia–Japan Cable * Tata Piti cable landing station:

VSNL Transpacific TGN-Pacific (TGN-P, previously VSNL Transpacific) is a Submarine communications cable, submarine telecommunications cable system transiting the Pacific Ocean. The cable system is constructed with one cable from Emi, Japan, to Hillsboro, Oregon, Un ...

, Tata TGN-Intra Asia, and Pipe Pacific Cable-1 * GTA Piti-I cable landing station: SEA-US, Japan-Guam-Australia South * Gateway Network Connections neutral cable landing station and data center in Piti: HK-G, Japan-Guam-Australia North, SxS Cable System * Unknown landing station: HANTRU-1 Retired cables landing on Guam include China-US Cable Network and PacRimWest.

References