The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians is developing a tribally owned broadband network in Santa Barbara County, California, using fiber optic technology to address the challenge of providing reliable, high-speed internet service across an area that is vulnerable to wildfires. The network is being built with support from a broadband infrastructure grant provided by the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) Federal Funding Account.
The new Chumash Fiber Network will consist of approximately 13 miles of underground fiber running through more than 1,400 acres of ranch land where tribal housing is under development, known as Camp 4. The network will connect these areas to the original Chumash Reservation, where the data center equipment is located at the Chumash Casino Resort.
To enhance capacity and reliability, the project utilizes California’s open-access Middle Mile Broadband Initiative (MMBI), which helps upgrade existing backhaul infrastructure and supports increased network traffic.
The technology chosen for this project is 10 Gigabit Symmetrical Passive Optical Network (XGS-PON). This type of passive optical network uses unpowered splitters to distribute light signals from a single fiber strand to multiple endpoints. By minimizing active components in the field, this approach reduces maintenance needs and power consumption.
David Fein, Project Manager for the Chumash Broadband Network, said: “The obvious choice was XGS-PON. Today it is XGS, and already they are testing to 10, 25, and even 50 gigabit PON. So that same 10 Gbps service will be able to be expanded to 25 and to 50, easily, over the next 20 years or so. This will enable our service to continue for the next few generations. This technology was the only way to fit the requirement – we had to bury the fiber, and we wanted it to be resilient, robust, and redundant.”
A key feature of this network is its underground installation. While aerial installations are common due to lower costs, they are more vulnerable to weather events and fire hazards—risks present in Santa Ynez. Underground installation required careful planning because of cultural considerations on tribal lands and incomplete mapping of existing utilities. Most work used horizontal boring techniques that minimize ground disturbance.
Fein explained: “We decided on underground fiber, where it would be impervious to weather and the fire hazards here. The idea was that we put it in once and it will be there for several generations. We decided to put a half-life on the design of 200 years. We wanted what is available today to take us to 10 generations in the future.”
Symmetrical gigabit service means users have equal upload and download speeds—a significant shift from older cable or DSL connections that prioritized downloads over uploads. With symmetrical bandwidth now seen as essential for modern activities like video conferencing or cloud backups across multiple devices in a household or business setting, Fein noted: “If you are streaming your entertainment and working from home, with kids on the internet, you are limited. Gigabit service is the only way to guarantee we have bandwidth for today and tomorrow. Every time you turn around it’s another device in your home. Cameras, TVs, tablets, PCs, phones – everything. They are all putting a capacity burden on your connection because the data is being backed up in the cloud.”
Initially operating below its full multi-gigabit design capacity but still offering symmetrical gigabit speeds above current consumer needs, the Chumash Fiber Network has been planned with future expansion in mind; upgrades could increase throughput simply by updating interface equipment while keeping existing fiber infrastructure intact.
