The Lummi Nation continues expanding broadband infrastructure to improve reliability, reach unserved homes, and support new housing developments throughout the Reservation.
These updates are to provide clarity.
The Lummi Nation Connect network is still in testing phase. On Friday the 3rd, a component in the test environment failed and was unable to recover. Over the weekend network engineers migrated the system over to the permanent environment which has multiple failover and redundancy paths built in at every level. Due to the length and impact of the incident final network testing was moved up in the schedule and is expecting to complete by End of Day on Friday 7/17.
This final testing is expected to cause some minor service impact and is one of the final steps to enable final System Stability Certification. After this is complete network interruptions should be no more common than on any other service network.
On July 9th, a regional fiber line on Old Marine Drive was damaged, affecting several northwest county networks, including internet and cellular services. According to information shared by local providers, the break involved a large fiber count and required extensive repairs by outside crews
The outage was not caused by the Tribe’s broadband construction, and tribal systems restored service as upstream providers completed repairs.
Broadband infrastructure is being installed to provide reliable high‑speed service across the Reservation, including new and existing homes. Construction includes trenching, conduit installation, fiber pulls, pole work, and network equipment placement
This is part of the Locate process, where existing utility providers mark the location of their existing lines so crews installing new lines can avoid damaging them.
Even with all available due diligence, occasionally existing lines are accidentally damaged. Contractors are required to report damage incidents immediately. The contractor and Project Manager documents each case and will either have the on-site crew fix the damage if possible, or if not, will work with the affected provider to ensure repairs are completed swiftly.
No. The Tribe is building a new tribally managed broadband network intended to provide an option for high-speed, reliable, tribally owned and operated internet services. Some residents currently receive service from providers such as CenturyLink, San Juan Cable, and Starlink. These providers may continue offering services in the areas they already serve.
No. This service is opt-in only. External lines in some Tribal Trust areas under the jurisdiction of the Lummi Housing Authority (LHA) are being run to houses with permission from LHA to make the locations Service Ready. The actual activation of the service, which includes the in-home installation, requires residents to choose to sign up for service.
All locations outside of LHA jurisdiction require an additional signed Right-of-Entry from the homeowner to perform the external work needed to connect a line from the street to the house. This also does not obligate the resident to sign up for service, but it does allow the location to be made Service Ready at no cost to the homeowner because the work is currently covered by grant funding.
