IP: Wireless Internet to Native American Reservations

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
>
> Wireless Internet to Native American Reservations
> <http://www.populartechnologies.com/news/01/02/15/0414200.shtml>
>
> Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) are using 
> the latest solar-powered wireless technology to help a pair of Native 
> American tribes bridge the digital divide. The High Performance Research 
> and Education Network (HPWREN) is overcoming geographical, social and 
> technical barriers to bring high-speed Internet access to the La Jolla and 
> Pala tribes.
>
> In remote San Diego County, HPWREN's 45Mbps (million bits per
> second) wireless backbone connects the low-lying San Diego coastline with 
> the county's mountainous eastern region, home of the La Jolla and Pala 
> Native American reservations. This outreach is funded by the National 
> Science Foundation (NSF) as part of an experimental wireless network that 
> also links UCSD with the Mount Laguna Observatory (operated by San Diego 
> State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), an 
> earthquake-detection site (run by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 
> part of UCSD), and two large ecological reserves with multiple field 
> stations. UCSD received a $2.3 million NSF award in August 2000 to create, 
> demonstrate and evaluate the prototype wide-area network for research and 
> education.
>
> Connecting the Native American communities posed special challenges for 
> the team led by computer scientist Hans-Werner Braun and geophysicist 
> Frank Vernon of UCSD. Foremost among these is the rugged terrain where the 
> reservations are located - ranging from valleys with elevation of 2,000 
> feet above sea level to mountain peaks at 5,000 feet. "There are no 
> line-of-sight views of existing microwave towers from the sites," Braun 
> said. "And in the case of La Jolla, we didn't even have access to electric 
> grid power on the mountain ridge edge of the reservation."
>
> That necessity prompted HPWREN staff to design a system of
> solar arrays and batteries for beaming digital signals where land--based 
> lines aren't practical. After first testing the solar setup last fall, the 
> team deployed it in December on Palomar Mountain, which looms above the La 
> Jolla reservation.
>
> La Jolla tribal members worked closely with the HPWREN team to prepare the 
> solar-powered system and antennae that would provide the reservation's 
> learning center with high-speed Internet connectivity. Now young and old 
> alike gather in the La Jolla and Pala learning centers to surf the 
> Internet at lightning speed.
>
> "The UC San Diego collaboration with La Jolla provides an opportunity for 
> our learning center to receive access to technology and capabilities that 
> we otherwise would not have in our remote county area," said Jack Musick, 
> La Jolla tribal chairman. "We look forward to building educational 
> programs that allow children and adults to take advantage of the connectivity."
>
> The project is exciting, Braun said, "because it's an interdisciplinary 
> effort to design a network that -- though experimental -- is robust enough 
> to be relied upon by researchers under even very adverse conditions, 
> including catastrophic earthquakes. HPWREN is developing such a system for 
> geophysicists, astronomers and ecologists, while demonstrating that the 
> same tools can connect under-served educational users at remote locations 
> like the Pala and La Jolla reservations."



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