Tlingit & Haida orders wireless towers to set up internet network this fall

The temporary, pop-up mobile towers have been ordered for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska's pilot project that will provide wireless internet service in Wrangell, but it will be later in the year before the system goes live.

Chris Cropley is a network architect at Central Council, which is setting up the federally funded broadband service named Tidal Network. He's been there since last April.

His job is a mix of disciplines - part technical, part administrative. He's overseeing the $2.5 million first-phase buildout in Wrangell, which "requires a lot of different pieces of technology" in much the same way a general contractor oversees construction of a house.

"I can, with a lot of confidence, know that we're not spending money on the wrong technology," Cropley said Feb. 8.

The tribe will initially set up the network in Wrangell, for a service area that eventually could stretch from Yakutat to Ketchikan. Central Council will set up temporary cell towers in Wrangell and "get internet served off of both those towers as far down the road system as we can south of Shoemaker (Bay)."

There is no rate sheet yet for the service, but Cropley envisions one or two free-to-discounted tiers, which could be subsidized by the Affordable Connectivity Program, a Federal Communications Commission program that provides a discount of up to $30 per month toward internet service for income-eligible households and up to $75 per month for households on qualifying tribal lands.

Eligible households can also receive a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop computer or tablet from participating providers.

Cropley signed papers last week on a "bunch of hardware" coming straight to Wrangell - two mobile towers on wheels from Pierson Wireless in Omaha, Nebraska, which will carry Nokia equipment. Those two towers fall under the first phase and, when combined with installation, cost $1.5 million.

Also arriving in the shipment are gizmos for customers to interface with the mobile towers - a WiFi router that will go inside the residence, and a Nokia FastMile 4G receiver, a device that will attach to the outside of a home to pick up the signal.

The towers and equipment should arrive in Wrangell in six to nine weeks, and will be stored until the network can be set up in fall 2022, he said.

One reason Tidal Network is using Nokia, Cropley said, is Nokia is an Open Radio Access Network, known as O-RAN, the industry standard to accommodate 5G signals, which are faster than 4G and its predecessors. Telecom companies Nokia and Ericsson are leading the way. "It's the good stuff," Cropley said.

The tribe will contract out the installation to Pierson Wireless.

Cropley said the second phase will take place in a couple of years, replacing the movable towers with permanent ones, which could cost an estimated $3 million. The tribe's Southeast General Contractors in Juneau will construct the permanent towers. As to how many, "two for sure, but probably three new towers." Tidal Network will use an existing tower at Shoemaker Bay. "That has fiber optic running to it already."

Cropley said Central Council has purchased a domain name for Tidal Network and is setting up a website designed by Cedar Group, a Juneau-based marketing and design firm. Southeast General Contractors is building a mobile trailer for Central Council to use when they start marketing Tidal Network to people in Wrangell. "It will be a mobile office where we can set up the customer equipment, and antennas onto their house."

The Central Council expects to hear back this spring on a federal grant request of $50 million from the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, which could cover a full build-out across more of Southeast, providing 32 towers in 22 different communities.

Once the network is in place, other companies or internet providers could lease space on Tidal Network's towers, a common practice in the industry. "Everyone from GCI, T-Mobile, radio stations, the city," Cropley said. Even smaller wireless internet service providers like The Snow Cloud and Rainforest Telecom, both based in Juneau, could lease space from Tidal Network towers around Southeast.

Cropley said that would allow for market competition.

"Think of it as a bridge," he said. "One of the goals of the funding, and (goal of) Tlingit and Haida, is to provide infrastructure for communications. We're not looking to ice anybody out. We're looking to facilitate."

The council plans to partner with other tribes and move the temporary towers to Sitka and Prince of Wales Island, for example, after Wrangell's stationary network is set up.

As of December, 292 applications have been granted through the FCC Rural Tribal Priority Window for wireless internet service, including 99 applications from Alaska tribes. In addition to Tlingit & Haida, Yakutat Tlingit Tribe, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, Hydaburg Cooperative Association and Organized Village of Saxman have also been granted a license.

The FCC issued a broadband license to Central Council in December 2021.