Fond du Lac Band of the Minnesota Ojibwe
The Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe has been planning and building their FTTH network for several years, working with the Blandin Foundation in Minnesota and pursuing funding from the federal and state government. Network construction began in 2017, and service began in November 2019. By April 2022, they were serving nearly 700 subscribers, with plans to offer services to another 500 homes by the end of summer 2022.
The initial network cost about $13.5 million in total, $9 million made up of grant funding from USDA Community Connect grants, two Minneasota Border-to-Border Broadband grants, and a HUD Indian Community Development Block Grant and $4.5 million contributed by the tribe itself. The tribe were also winners in FCC’s Connect America Fund Phase II auction in 2018 to serve high-cost census blocks, which requires them to provide voice and broadband services.
Aaniin is an Eligible Telecommunications Company (ETC) and was able to offer the Emergency Broadband Benefit to subscribers through COVID and now has roughly 15% of subscribers enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program.
Read news coverage and stories about the network construction here, here and here, and their connectivity throughout COVID here.
Read about their work on our own MuniNetworks.org here and the in-depth case study of the network in “Building Indigenous Future Zones: Four Tribal Broadband Case Studies” (ILSR, 2021).