- Details
- By Chez Oxendine
- Economic Development
Bay Mills Indian Community
Location: Brimley, Michigan
Award: $499,850
Bay Mills Indian Community’s award through the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, under the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, fell well short of their ask, tribal chair Whitney Gravelle told Tribal Business News.
The tribe initially applied for $8 million to establish a network operations center (NOC) in their tribal administration building, as well as upgrading old copper lines throughout their reservation and installing new fiber where needed.
They received $499,850 toward the NOC instead, leaving them at a loss as to what to do next about actually getting unserved or underserved households online, Gravelle said. In the wake of COVID-19 those insufficiencies have become especially stark, the tribal chair added.
“Everyone was kind of bunkering down, and we discovered we didn't actually have the proper infrastructure in place to support that broadband community. Our original application was sought out to not only create this NOC, but also to run internet out to the parts of our reservation that don't have it,” Gravelle said. “We did not get that, unfortunately, so that's still something we need to address in the future. We’re still figuring out what to do next.”
The network operations center was a small blessing, however: the tribe applied to build the center, or NOC, as a result of a fire in their casino and resort in May 2022 that knocked out operations for weeks. The blaze swept through the casino and resort’s IT department, which also served as a nexus for much of the tribe’s internet operations both in and outside of the resort.
That left the tribe struggling to get even basic business done, Gravelle said, and convinced her that something that could be more carefully maintained, monitored, and repaired was the safer option.
“It wiped out all of our network servers across the tribe, because all of those servers speak to one another,” Gravelle said. “Even though the fire was actually very contained, we could not access our documents, we could not print, we could not process credit cards, we could not email — we could not do anything. In order to protect not only our data, but our network security, we needed to create a NOC where we're able to backup and streamline all of those services.”
The NOC will be built and maintained inside of the tribe’s main administrative office. The TBCP award arrived in late April. Gravelle said with the funds in hand, tribal engineers are “moving forward” on planning the project’s next steps.
That still leaves some crucial areas unserved or on old copper cabling that doesn’t support the kind of data transfer needed to survive punishing broadband usage between video calls, gaming, telehealth services and increasing internet usage, Gravelle said. As broadband becomes more ubiquitous, the tribe has reached out to local communications company Hiawatha Communications to begin installing preliminary fiber lines to select locations within the reservation area.
That project is also in its planning phases while Bay Mills seeks out new federal support, including the Department of Agriculture’s ReConnect program, which awarded another Michigan tribe, the Sault Ste. Marie Band of Chippewa Indians, $25 million for a large fiber network buildout in 2022.
If the project with Hiawatha Communications moves forward, Gravelle expects the selected areas to be online within a year. From there, it’s onward and upward, she said - for both getting online and turning the new connectivity into opportunity.
“Broadband is the future, not just from a connectivity standpoint, but from a revenue standpoint,” Gravelle said. “We’re going to build these lines and that means we can become a utility ourselves or begin leasing them out to other companies. Tribes shouldn’t just think about connectivity, but what they’re going to be doing after that. I think there’s a lot of potential there. We just need the federal support to make it happen.”
