It’s routine for Patrick Gomez to reinstall the internet router at his home on the Santa Ynez Chumash Reservation, where the power can go out unexpectedly throughout the day.
Gomez pays $145 per month for internet access, though he sometimes has to make the hour-long round trip to Lompoc to get a new router from Xfinity by Comcast.
Soon Gomez will no longer have to worry about these internet snafus following the final installation of underground fiber optic cables on his block of the reservation.
“I’m just ready for them to put these fiber optics in,” Gomez said.
The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians announced on Wednesday its first successful connection of high-speed fiber optic cables that will supply 100 homes with high-speed internet access in the tribe’s reservation land.
Technicians from Cal.net, the internet service provider for the project, are installing 13 miles of broadband cable networks underneath the Chumash reservation in Santa Ynez from federal and state grants.
The money has already connected 28 homes, with the rest connecting in the next couple weeks, wrote Mike Traphagen, director of communications for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, in an email to the News-Press.
Residents of the reservation will pay a standard rate of $95 per month for high-speed internet, while others can qualify for a $40 per month plan.
A free trial will be granted to those who join the broadband service, Traphagen wrote, and others can choose to stay with their former internet service provider.
“In today’s world, broadband is no longer a luxury,” said Kenneth Khan, chairman of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians.
The project broke ground last October to begin installing broadband cables underneath the Chumash reservation.
Khan worked with the California Public Utilities Commission to apply for the Local Agency Technical Assistance, a state grant for tribes and local agencies to expand broadband service in underserved areas of the state.
Money for the broadbands also came from the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, a federal program for tribal governments to install broadbands on tribal lands.
The tribal government for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians started planning for broadband connection in 2022 due to high costs and poor reliability with internet providers for residents, Khan said.
