Zach Hirsch (3:32)

from Recorded Future News and prx. This is Click here. I'm Zach Hirsch. Back in the late 90s, Matthew Rantanen was in Silicon Valley.

Matthew Rantanen (3:41)

So I'm a recovering graphic designer. I got into a dot com company, bluemountain.com and I was at a management level senior designer and manager.

Zach Hirsch (3:53)

This was peak.com, when investors believed the Internet would reinvent everything. Onmoney.com snap.com right answers right away.

Matthew Rantanen (4:03)

Ebworld.com we're inside your world.

Zach Hirsch (4:06)

Remember those cutesy animated gifs people would send each other? Happy birthday to you.

Gigi Sohn (4:12)

Happy birthday to you.

Zach Hirsch (4:14)

Matthew made those for a living.

Matthew Rantanen (4:16)

Also responsible for setting up web servers and doing all kinds of different stuff. So I got way into the technology side of things.

Zach Hirsch (4:22)

And then In March of 2000, the.com bubble burst.

Matthew Rantanen (4:27)

I got laid off like everybody else in the dot com and I got.

Zach Hirsch (4:30)

When the dot com dream collapsed, Matthew found himself looking for work and purpose. He's a descendant of the Cree nation. And around that same time, tribes in Southern California were trying to solve this problem that the techboom had largely ignored how to get connected at all. So when those tribes began looking for technical help, Matthew raised his hand. This didn't feel like just another contract. This felt personal. The tribes wanted to improve their Internet service and build a web portal, and they hired Matthew to help out. And it didn't take long to understand the scale of the challenge. For one thing, a few people had dial up, but otherwise there was no access.

Matthew Rantanen (5:11)

I couldn't use my cell phone on the reservation.

Zach Hirsch (5:14)

There were actually 19 reservations spread across Riverside and San Diego counties. Rural communities separated by distance and by infrastructure that had never been built.

Matthew Rantanen (5:25)

They're in, you know, at the base of a mountain or there's a lot of rocks in the ground. So trenching fiber doesn't work very well. There's a lot of wildfire. So, you know, hanging fiber on poles doesn't work very well.

Zach Hirsch (5:36)

But the tough terrain wasn't just some unlucky coincidence. It was history. A legacy of forced relocation, broken promises, and chronic neglect.

Matthew Rantanen (5:46)

The tribes didn't choose to live on the reservations that they currently live on. They were put there. They were moved to an area that didn't have any resources. And the federal government, they were supposed to provide these resources to these reservations.

Zach Hirsch (6:01)

Resources like phone lines and later Internet. And that promise goes back generations. And when it came time for broadband, big providers Looked at the map and made the same calculation we talked about earlier. Small populations, hard builds, uncertain profit. Add to that the fact that each tribe is considered a sovereign nation, with its own laws, permitting processes, and negotiations to providers, it often didn't seem worth the trouble. So instead of building directly, the government tried to nudge the market. It offered subsidies which came with strings attached. Like if a company accepted the funding, it had to commit to serving almost everyone in the area, at least 98.5% of customers.

Matthew Rantanen (6:47)

Guess who the one and a half percent is like the 1.5% that you worked your way around, you know, includes all the tribes.

Zach Hirsch (6:57)

For Matthew and the tribes in San Diego county, that gap wasn't abstract. It meant unreliable phone service, slow connections, or no connection at all, which is why they started looking for another way. And just as they were getting started, they heard about a project happening nearby called Hpwen, which is high Performance Wireless

Matthew Rantanen (7:18)

research and education network.

Zach Hirsch (7:20)

It wasn't built to bring Internet to people. It was built to study earthquakes. Out in the desert, a researcher had figured out how to send seismic data wirelessly to a university lab more than 50 miles away. Matthew and his team saw it and thought, if you can send earthquake data that far, maybe you can send Internet too. So they tracked down the scientists behind it. And it turned out he wasn't just any researcher. He was one of the pioneers of the early Internet, Hans Werner Braun. He invited them into his kitchen and gave them a crash course in networking

Matthew Rantanen (7:55)

and explained, you know, here's two wireless radios. This is how they communicate. Now go build this on mountaintops. And no kidding, that was like the level of instruction I know was done in his kitchen.

Zach Hirsch (8:10)

And that was basically the plan. Build towers, put radios on mountaintops, bounce the signal across the desert. And just like that, the tribes started building their own Internet.

Matthew Rantanen (8:21)

Microwave radios that point from one tower to the next and sending and receiving data through the airwaves.

Zach Hirsch (8:27)

For this to work, the towers had to be able to see each other. Line of sight. If one mountain couldn't see the next, the signal wouldn't make it. So while Matthew worked on grants and funding, teenagers grabbed hiking boots, GPS units, and notebooks, and headed into the hills. They climbed ridgelines and mountaintops, looking for places where one tower could see another.

Matthew Rantanen (8:50)

From the top of this mountain that the Paula tribe owns, you can see Santa Isabel and you can see La Jolla and, and you can see Mesa Grande. So this is a really good spot to put a tower because we can see all three of those locations. And they documented all the places that they thought would be the best place to put a tower.

Zach Hirsch (9:11)

Within a year, by 2002, the towers started going up.

Matthew Rantanen (9:15)

It's like the hub of a bicycle wheel, and the spokes that go out are wireless connections.

Zach Hirsch (9:20)

Seven reservations connected, and the network was live. They called it the tribal Digital village Network. TDV Net. For the first time, these communities had reliable Internet. Not everyone welcomed the idea. Matthew ran into pushback from some tribal leaders. They were worried about disturbing artifacts in the ground and wary of what the Internet might bring.

Matthew Rantanen (9:45)

You know, it's full of bad things, and we don't want our kids to be exposed to that.

Zach Hirsch (9:50)

And there was another security, because other tribes went online, and before long, hackers targeted them. Earlier this year, the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes in Oklahoma were hit by a ransomware attack. It shut down their systems, and hackers demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars just to unlock them again.

Matthew Rantanen (10:10)

Virus. Things that have happened to some of the tribes where all of their records and things have been stolen and held for ransom. Multiple tribes have been caught in that.

Zach Hirsch (10:20)

Stories like that made some tribal leaders cautious. But in San Diego County, Matthew says they moved carefully, emphasizing security and training from the start. And as the towers went up, something unexpected happened. The Internet didn't just change the network, it started changing the community, especially among young people.

Matthew Rantanen (10:41)

You know, kids that didn't really have any drive and were trapped on a reservation, didn't really have an out or, you know, vision something else. The Internet had given them access to, like, online video editing tools. And they were now editing their skateboarding videos and like, doing little short videos of them doing tricks on skateboards and doing different stuff with their friends or, you know, rapping all kinds of stuff like that.

Zach Hirsch (11:04)

These kids weren't just gaining access to the Internet. In many cases, they had helped build the network themselves. And after decades of neglect, limited resources, and being told it couldn't be done, the Tribal Digital village proves it could.

Matthew Rantanen (11:19)

That was a, you know, the huge eye opening moment for this whole group of people, like, hey, all that stuff we just did turned into, we have Internet after school in these programs and now we can do stuff. They could take the reins on this and didn't have to rely on, you know, some carrier who was going to charge them, you know, full retail to do any of these things and probably not even come because there's, you know, no return on investment in these reservations. So that was sort of the eye opening moment was watching the individuals in this community change their own destiny.

Dina Temple-Raston (11:56)

When we come back, the tribal digital village starts drawing attention far beyond Southern California, and Matthew steps into a new role, not just building networks, but teaching others how to do it too. Stay with us. Support for Clik here comes from Quince I've been doing a little spring reset with my closet lately, focusing on quality over quantity, building a wardrobe of pieces that are well made, versatile and easy to reach for every day. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. The fabrics feel elevated, the fits are thoughtful, and the pricing actually makes sense. Quince uses premium materials like 100% European linen or organic cotton and super soft denim with styles starting around $50. Their spring pieces are lightweight, breathable and effortless, the kind of things you can throw on and instantly look put together. And they have a great lineup of accessories too, like leather bags made of 100% hand woven Italian leather that honestly look way more expensive than they actually are. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman. So you're truly paying for quality, not branch markup. For me, there's still enough of a nip in the air to wear my quarter Zip Fisherman cashmere sweaters. They're super soft and they didn't cost what I thought something of this quality would. Refresh your spring wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.com clickhere for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Go to q U-I-N-C-E.com clickhere for free shipping 365 day returns. Quince.com clickhere the Wired newsroom is known

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Dina Temple-Raston (14:21)

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Zach Hirsch (14:32)

As the network expanded tower by tower, we word began to spread. Other reservations wanted to know how they had done it, and Matthew began to realize this wasn't just a local solution, it might be a blueprint. There are more than 300 federally recognized reservations in the United States, many facing the same broadband gaps. So Matthew started talking about the tribal digital village at conferences at Workshops at the federal Communications commission. And soon tdvnet started attracting attention far beyond California.

Matthew Rantanen (15:06)

We got written up in a French magazine about this. They figured out that we might be the largest wireless network that was not for profit in the world at the time. We were like, what?

Zach Hirsch (15:20)

But Matthew wasn't interested in press coverage. What he wanted was for other communities to be able to do this too. So he started inviting tribes to southern California to learn how to build the Internet themselves.

Gigi Sohn (15:35)

There's one yellow.

Recorded Future Sponsor Voice (15:36)

Okay, there's a second pair.

Zach Hirsch (15:37)

We found two. Matthew organized his first workshop for tribes in 2021. At the time, the federal government had set aside billions of dollars for tribal broadband projects. But many communities didn't know how to access that funding or how to turn the money into functioning networks. So the workshop filled up quickly.

Matthew Rantanen (15:59)

I think we had 29 people. Seven tribes represented. It was 103 degrees and we were doing, we were holding it, and I'm a big metal shop.

Zach Hirsch (16:11)

Matthew worried the extreme heat would clear the room. Instead, he saw something very different. Some participants were crying tears of happiness.

Matthew Rantanen (16:22)

And you know, I'm not doing this alone. I had no clue we were doing this in our community. We didn't know other people were doing this. We now have friends and resources in the space. And by day three, everybody was still in the room, still engaged, still focused, and still doing the work.

Zach Hirsch (16:37)

They called it the tribal broadband boot camp. And the goal was simple and ambitious. Teach tribes how to build and operate their own Internet systems end to end, from towers to fiber to repair. And to make the training practical, Matthew transformed his property into a hands on lab.

Matthew Rantanen (16:59)

Fiber in the ground, there's tower sections, there's aerial lashing, demos on poles and stuff. I mean, it got the space, I might as well play with it.

Zach Hirsch (17:07)

Participants didn't just sit through presentations. They practiced real world scenarios, including what happens when something goes wrong. Matthew would deliberately damage a fiber line, Then challenge teams to repair it. The work was technical, but the impact was human. People who had never collaborated before began working side by side. Even tribes with long standing tensions.

Matthew Rantanen (17:32)

And all of those technicians hung out together and became this one unit. They took a picture of themselves holding a metal mask with a wireless antenna on top of it, as if they were reenacting the Iwo Jima photo, You

Zach Hirsch (17:46)

know, the one soldiers leaning in to raise a flag.

Matthew Rantanen (17:49)

And they started exchanging resources and working with each other and supporting each other's efforts. Never been done. So that was amazing.

Zach Hirsch (17:58)

Of course, it wasn't just photo ops. Tribes were taking what they learned. And then applying for grants and launching their own Internet companies, fully owned and operated by the tribes. Just like the tribal digital village.

Gigi Sohn (18:14)

They have a desire for sovereignty. They want to own those networks. They want to own the airwaves over their tribal communities as well.

Zach Hirsch (18:24)

That's Gigi Sohn with the American association for Public Broadband. She says what Matthew helped spark is part of a broader shift. Communities tired of waiting are building networks of their own.

Gigi Sohn (18:37)

There are so many towns and cities where the big providers don't want to serve, or if they want to serve, they want to give them very low quality.

Zach Hirsch (18:48)

Jiji is helping towns and cities create their own Internet providers. And that can take a lot of different forms. Co ops, open access networks, public utilities, like in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Gigi Sohn (19:01)

So an old coal city, you know, really down in the dumps. In the 80s and 90s, they had an electric utility, and the leaders at the time said, well, why don't we just add broadband? And now this city has exploded. It has become, you know, one of the highest tech cities of the South.

Zach Hirsch (19:22)

Chattanooga was the trailblazer. And later other cities followed. Places like Wilmar, Minnesota, Huntsville, Alabama, Farr, Texas, and Bountiful, Utah, which partnered with an Internet company called Utopia.

Gigi Sohn (19:35)

And Bountiful owns the infrastructure, but Utopia runs it. So there are lots of different ways. If you don't want to run it, there are companies that will run it for you. But the public owns the infrastructure and can decide who gets it at what price and can ultimately benefit from it in terms of economic development and revenues.

Zach Hirsch (19:57)

Gigi says this isn't about some abstract idea of sticking it to the man. It's about power, even justice, because if you own your own Internet, you control your future. Right now, over 800 cities and towns across the US have some sort of public broadband. And Gigi says the big Internet companies are not thrilled.

Gigi Sohn (20:20)

The big ISPs have a very comfortable situation. They each have regional monopolies, and they make a lot of money from them. They can charge, you know, monopoly prices, and they don't want anybody treading on that.

Zach Hirsch (20:34)

We reached out to two major Internet companies, Charter and Comcast. We haven't heard back, but their lobbying groups have argued that the private sector does Internet the best, that public projects are too expensive and government should stay out of the way. Gigi hears hypocrisy in that argument, because private companies are usually the biggest winners of government funding.

Gigi Sohn (20:57)

The notion that there's just private enterprise that doesn't use public rights of way, that doesn't take taxpayer dollars, is just a bunch of nonsense.

Zach Hirsch (21:08)

Back in Southern California, Matthew says resistance isn't always out in the open. Sometimes it's quiet. Matthew believes some large providers are waiting for tribal networks to fail, hoping to buy them at a bargain price later.

Matthew Rantanen (21:23)

They feel like, you know, tribe's going to use all their federal program to build the network and then these companies are going to come in and buy them for nothing and, you know, make money on it and they won't have spent a dime doing it.

Zach Hirsch (21:35)

Matthew says that's exactly what the boot Camp network is designed to prevent. If one community struggles, others step in with advice, resources, or technical help.

Matthew Rantanen (21:46)

And if they are in the boot camp network of folks, these are conversations that are happening regularly. You know, can somebody help us, you know, devise a solution around this?

Zach Hirsch (21:59)

So far, he says, more than 200 tribes have begun forming their own Internet service providers. Funding setbacks have slowed some projects, but the momentum remains. Because for decades, these communities waited for the market to find them profitable, for the government to fulfill old promises. Now many have concluded that neither is coming. So they're building the infrastructure themselves. Not just wires and towers, but independence. Proof that the tools of connection don't have to belong only to large corporations. That local knowledge can solve problems outsiders deemed impossible, and that the communities most often left out can become builders, not just customers.

Dina Temple-Raston (22:49)

That was Zach Hirsch and this is Click Here. We'll be back on Tuesday. Have a great weekend. Click Here is a production of Recorded Future News and prx. Today's show was written and produced by Megan Dietrich, Sean Powers, Erica Gaeda, Zach Hirsch and Casey Georgie. It was edited by Karen Duffin and Sarah Cavedo and fact checked by Darren Ancrum. Original music is by Ben Levingston and additional music is from Blue Dot Sessions. Our staff writer is Lucas Riley. Our illustrator is Megan Gough, and our sound designers and engineers are Jake Cook and Jesse Niswonger. I'm Dena Tumble Raston and that's the show. Thanks for listening and join us next week for another look at how tech is reshaping our world.

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