*The following story by Broadband Breakfast Reporter Jennifer Michel was originally published here.

From August 18-21, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians will host a four-day Tribal Broadband Bootcamp on the Tribe's Marquette campus in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The Bootcamp aims to equip Tribal Nations with the skills to build, manage, and expand their own broadband networks. It will be the second held in the Great Lakes region, designed primarily for members of 36 federally recognized Tribes across Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The first Tribal Broadband Bootcamp took place in California in 2021, organized by Matthew Rantanen and Christopher Mitchell, co-founders of the broadband advocacy group Waskawiwin, who hoped to build and encourage nontraditional broadband networks.

Image

Seventeen bootcamps have occurred since 2021, each with an agenda adjusted to the experiences and interests of hosting Tribes. Overall, the training program has hosted more than 400 participants from more than 70 Tribal Nations across the United States and Canada.

The training program, led by Rantanen and Mitchell, will unite tribal technology staff, community leaders, and broadband advocates for hands-on instruction in network design, deployment and management.

According to Mitchell, the goal of the Bootcamp “is to connect people working in Indian Country on Internet access to build skills and share knowledge on how to make sure everyone is well connected.”

For Angela Diahkah, what started as a self-described “side hustle” is now her full-time job.

Diahkah – or “Ange,” as she sometimes goes by – is five years into serving as Network Operations Supervisor and Digital Navigator Program Manager for JNET, the Tribally-owned broadband provider for the Pueblo of Jemez.

Just 50 miles northwest of Albuquerque, Angela leads the charge in building a new fiber network, the gold-standard of Internet connectivity, that once complete will serve her community (one of the 19 Pueblos in New Mexico).

Last week, she was at the 17th Tribal Broadband Bootcamp (TBB) in Aguana, California in the hills above Temecula Valley, along with a half dozen JNET technicians-in-training and JNET Director Kevin Shendo. The 30 or so other TBB participants – representing broadband leaders from several other federally-recognized Tribes – were also there for the three-day immersive learning experience focused on building and operating Tribal Internet networks.

Held in different tribal regions several times a year since the initiative began in 2021, this most recent bootcamp was back at TBB co-founder Matthew Rantanen’s “RantanenTown Ranch.”

Image

“We're basically trying to find a light in a dark tunnel and just work with what’s best for us,” Angela told ILSR in describing why she and her JNET crew had come, just as they are in the early stages building out their own fiber-to-the-home network.

“We want to expose them to the network,” literally and figuratively, she said.

As federal broadband funding sources face continued uncertainty, California’s massive last-mile grant program continues to plow ahead, looking increasingly like a vital lifeline for communities hoping to ensure that every individual has access to robust, reliable, and affordable Internet access.

Cold Springs Rancheria of Mono Indians was among the applicants celebrating a winning grant application in the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) latest Federal Funding Account (FFA) announcement.

The grant marks the eighth successful application by a Tribal nation in this program and another in a long list of community-focused projects led by public entities like municipalities.

Image

Cold Spring Rancheria’s application, for up to $1.5 million dollars, will bring much-needed connectivity to a total of 94 units, including 5 anchor institutions, on the Reservation in Fresno County with 100 percent of the households served by this project qualifying as low-income.

Many residents on the Reservation lack access to a terrestrial Internet service offering speeds anywhere near the definition of broadband (100 Mbps Upload/20 Mbps Download). Those that do have access to purported “broadband” speeds must rely on out-of-date DSL connections and, as a result, struggle with slow and spotty connections.

After working for several years to find a viable solution to these connectivity challenges, Tribal officials can now look forward to the fastest and most reliable Internet access via fiber-to-the-home technology.

The new, Tribally-owned broadband network will help the Tribe achieve universal access.

If the cloud of uncertainty suddenly hovering over federal broadband funding programs is lifted, four Tribal communities in Alaska can fully celebrate the announcement last week that state-of-the-art fiber connectivity will soon arrive at their homes on Kodiak Island just off the south coast of Alaska.

On January 16, Old Harbor Native Corporation secured a portion of $162 million in grants in the second round of funding from the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) administered by NTIA.

Old Harbor Native Corporation will undertake the project, named Project Nunapet for an Alutiiq word meaning “our lands,” in partnership with Alaska Communications.

According to a recent press announcement, a 155-mile subsea cable originating at Alaska Communications’ fiber landing station in Homer will cross the Shelikof Strait to reach Kodiak Island in Ouzinkie before circling the eastern coast of the island with stops in Narrow Cape, Old Harbor, and Akhiok. Project Nunapet will also bring fiber-to-the-home connectivity to Old Harbor, Chiniak, Akhiok, and Womens Bay.

Image

The two corporations hope that the infrastructure will serve as a foundation for future network expansion in the area.

With the incoming Trump administration and the ascendance of GOP leaders taking aim at key aspects of broadband expansion initiatives embedded in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, industry insiders expect the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to likely get a major facelift in the coming months.

GOP Senate leaders have signaled they will push for BEAD to be scaled back or reconfigured.

One way they may do that is to remove the law’s preference for funding fiber network deployments and create a path for subsidizing Musk’s satellite Internet company, arguing that Starlink would be a more cost-effective solution to bring broadband to rural America.

Late last week, in fact, NTIA released its “Final Guidance for BEAD Funding of Alternative Broadband Technology.” And while the updated guidelines still considers fiber deployments as “priority broadband projects,” the agency administering the BEAD program now explicitly says that states can award “LEO Capacity Subgrants.”

Among the burgeoning number of Tribal networks being built across Indian Country, a new fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network spanning the Southern Ute Indian Reservation is unique.

When service was lit up in Ignacio, Colorado in May, the network became the only open access network owned by a Tribal government, providing its residents with a choice between two different Internet Service Providers (ISP) offering lightning-fast connection speeds.

Five years in the making, the Southern Ute network is not only the first Tribally-owned open access network, it is also among the first of the new fiber projects funded by the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) to start offering services.

Image

With a strong commitment from Tribal leadership, savvy decision-making, and strategic vision, the Tribe has been able to fundamentally reshape the broadband market in its region, increasing speeds and competition while lowering prices.

Slow Speeds and High Prices Fuel Mission to ‘Bust That Monopoly’

As with many other Tribally-owned networks, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s broadband journey began with a recognition that the existing telecommunications infrastructure on the Reservation simply could not meet the needs of the modern moment.

Tribal Council Chairman Melvin J. Baker tells ILSR that many in Tribal leadership “realized we’ve needed it for quite some time.”

In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, ILSR celebrates the growing number of Tribal nations exercising digital sovereignty by building Tribally-owned broadband networks.

Our freshly updated Indigenous Networks map and census highlights the burgeoning Tribal broadband movement, offering a window into this critical work across Indian Country.

Our updates underscore how much has changed since 2020 when ILSR first undertook research on Tribal networks. When we began tracking the development of Tribal broadband, of the 574 federally-recognized Tribes in the nation, there were about 40 Tribal networks offering service.

Four years later, there are now twice as many active networks in operation with 50 more Tribes who have secured funding to build their own networks, thanks in part to unprecedented federal investments in Tribal broadband. An additional four dozen Tribes have expressed interest in following suit, determined to close the digital divide in what has historically been the least connected part of the United States.

Image

Many Tribal broadband networks that we previously identified have continued to thrive. Others have been able to upgrade their services to offer fiber service, the gold standard of Internet connectivity.

Meanwhile, a steady stream of new Tribal broadband programs have launched, with networks coming online each year and many others on the horizon, signaling a period of tremendous growth in Tribal broadband.

As Digital Inclusion Week 2024 swings into action, frontline digital inclusion practitioners from across the nation will come together for a timely Building for Digital Equity (#B4DE) livestream event today that focuses on “Coalition Building for Success.”

The popular (and free) virtual gathering – co-hosted by Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) – will go live today from 3 to 4:15 PM ET.

Image

For Digital equity advocates or interested guests who have yet register for the event, there is still time to register here.

The third #B4DE of the year will delve into how coalitions are finding success in pushing the digital equity movement forward as Digital Equity Act grant programs are being established.

The keynote speaker for today’s livestream will be Georgia Savage, Deputy Director of #OaklandUndivided, who helped lead the way in securing $38.5 million in grant funding that will expand broadband infrastructure and distribute Internet-connected devices to thousands of low-income households across East and West Oakland, California.