Tribal Digital Village Network Connects to International Peering Exchange with Help from Pacific Northwest Gigapop, CENIC, Google, and AT&T

14 Native American tribes in Southern CA are now directly connected to the state-of-the-art International Internet Exchange, Pacific Wave, and its peering, high-performance scientific networks, and ever-expanding global connectivity. Six more tribes are also expected to join in the coming months. This new connection enables tribal libraries, scientific research facilities, and cultural preservation institutions to collaborate with partners across the state, the nation, and the world. Tribal Digital Village, a tribal consortium-owned Internet service provider in San Diego County, has connected to Pacific Wave’s infrastructure on the West Coast. A joint project of CENIC and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), Pacific Wave interconnects most international Asia-Pacific research and education networks, key US Western regional research and education networks, leading national-scale research networks, and major commercial research cloud services.

“Native Americans in Tribal Areas are among the least connected people in America,” said Google Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf. “This new interconnection and the incontrovertible logic behind it, is a dramatic way to draw tribal communities into a rapidly digitizing world.”