Under the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, NANA has been awarded a $65,168,000 broadband infrastructure deployment grant. This grant provides funding to complete the design, permitting, and installation of a high-speed fiber broadband network, spanning 1,100 kilometers (683 miles), connecting the eleven geographically dispersed tribal villages communities in the NANA region.
Located at the extreme northwestern edge of the North American continent, above the Arctic Circle, our region is vast, sparsely populated, and isolated; no roads connect our villages to each other or our region to greater Alaska. Practically all necessities for life are barged or flown into the region, resulting in extremely high prices for basic goods, including food, fuel, and building materials.
The region is without true broadband and the available internet is inadequate with extremely poor connectivity, slow access, and prices that are beyond the reach of most residents. Internet adoption rates are low, and many things taken for granted elsewhere are not available in the region, including distance learning, telehealth, or work from home opportunities.
COVID-19 devastated NANA families and communities in our region and highlighted this digital divide. While in other areas of the country, people were able to leverage the digital economy to adapt to pandemic lockdowns with online shopping, learning, and working, these were beyond the reach of the tribal Alaskan population in the NANA region.
With long lead times on permitting and accounting for the challenging construction conditions installation of a remote fiberoptic network in the Arctic entails, we expect this ambitious effort to take approximately four years.
In addition to the middle-mile buildout, which will connect the communities to one another and the world, NANA will also deliver a last-mile solution in each community, operating as an Internet Service Provider (ISP), bringing fast, affordable, and reliably consistent broadband services to each resident.
This ISP will provide affordable residential Internet service with unlimited data per household. This service level far surpasses the limited offerings currently available in the region, where all communities are considered unserved by NTIA standards.
In addition to providing Internet, our ISP will also create a Regional Network Operating Center (NOC) in Kotzebue, offering permanent jobs and infrastructure monitoring services across the region, as well as local village technician opportunities.
As an inherently regional entity, NANA supports NTIA’s emphasis on regional solutions. We have collaborated in the past with other regional entities including Northwest Arctic Borough, the Northwest Arctic School District, Maniilaq Association (regional tribal health consortium), the Alaska Technical Center, and others. Together, we have addressed such challenges as workforce development, clean energy, and infrastructure development.
NANA looks forward to continuing those partnerships with area leadership to ensure broadband access to all regional residents, businesses, and schools. Our successful approach to this grant was truly a regional solution.
This project will deliver broadband access and bring digital equity to tribal communities in our region and will serve as a catalyst for lasting change for this generation and the generations to come. NANA has the community