The makah tribe of the makah indian reservation (makah) is a federally recognized tribe

The makah reservation comprises forty-seven square miles at the northwest point of the olympic peninsula in clallam county, washington. Access to the reservation is only through state highway 112, making IT remote in addition to rural. There are approximately 3,319 enrolled members of the makah tribe, around 1,692 of whom live on the reservation. There are a total of 651 households, 70 businesses, and 14 community anchor institutions that include, among others, a tribal complex, public safety, housing department, education department, wellness center, and a museum. As a remote and rural village, the traditional telecom providers do not see a profitable business case to encourage broadband infrastructure investment. This affects the makah communitys ability to receive essential services such as telehealth, elearning, and other tribal services, causing the connectivity, economic and social GAP to grow. The consequence is immeasurable as children enrolled in k-12 schools fall behind and adults are deprived of economic opportunity. The only area with broadband service is neah BAY, where the only service provider in the area, centurylink (lumen technologies), has a reduced DSL footprint such that 25 mbps / 3 mbps is only available a few blocks from the central office, leaving 520 locations without access to qualifying broadband service. Lumen technologies has been funded by the federal communications commission (FCC) rural digital opportunity fund to serve 267 of these locations with fiber, while the tribe has been funded by ntia tbcp round 1 equitable distribution and the washington state public works board (PWB) to serve 21, and 61 additional locations with fiber or fixed wireless access (FWA) services. In this tbcp round 2 application, the tribe requests $6,166,003.19 for the deployment of a fiber-to-the-premises (fttp) network that will connect 163 locations that are currently unserved and are not part of the funded projects mentioned above to qualifying broadband service with a minimum speeds of 1 gbps symmetrical and up to 5 gbps symmetrical. This includes 163 unserved tribal households, 12 unserved tribal businesses, and 2 unserved tribal community anchor institutions. 67 of these households (41%) are estimated to be at or below the 150% poverty line. The proposed technology is XGS-PON which offers a symmetric line rate of ~10 gbit/s, shared efficiently among multiple users. This configuration ensures symmetrical download/upload speeds of at least 1 gbps per subscriber. The proposed funded activities include the following: engineering and network design obtention of permits for construction, including environmental assessments and cultural reviews. Outside plant infrastructure deployment, including underground installation of telecom conduit and fiber cable along 15 miles within the reservation. In addition, 4.8 miles of service drops will be installed. Deployment of network equipment and systems required for network operation and maintenance. Installation of cpes and service provisioning fund a direct internet access long-term agreement. The project plan targets a 14-month timeline for the implementation of the tasks above. The proposed fttp network will provide competitive and affordable services, including a low-cost service with symmetrical speeds of 100 mbps, a standard 1 gbps service and a premium 5 gbps service. The offered service plans will participate in the FCC affordable connectivity program (ACP) to provide subscriber subsidies. In addition, these services will be offered without installation fees, data caps or long-term commitments. Network operation will be outsourced to one or more partners to be selected through an RFP process managed by makah. Two part-time jobs will be created to manage and oversee these partners. These jobs will give preference to tribal members and will incorporate strong labor standards, prov