NSF PR 01-11 - February 8, 2001
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Research Network Brings Wireless Internet to Native American Reservations
Solar-powered net connects La Jolla and Pala Tribes near San DiegoResearchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) are using the latest solar-powered wireless technology to help a pair of Native American tribes bridge the digital divide. The High Performance Research and Education Network (HPWREN) is overcoming geographical, social and technical barriers to bring high-speed Internet access to the La Jolla and Pala tribes. In remote San Diego County, HPWREN’s 45Mbps (million bits per second) wireless backbone connects the low-lying San Diego coastline with the county's mountainous eastern region, home of the La Jolla and Pala Native American reservations. This outreach is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of an experimental wireless network that also links UCSD with the Mount Laguna Observatory (operated by San Diego State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), an earthquake-detection site (run by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, part of UCSD), and two large ecological reserves with multiple field stations. UCSD received a $2.3 million NSF award in August 2000 to create, demonstrate and evaluate the prototype wide-area network for research and education. Connecting the Native American communities posed special challenges for the team led by computer scientist Hans-Werner Braun and geophysicist Frank Vernon of UCSD. Foremost among these is the rugged terrain where the reservations are located - ranging from valleys with elevation of 2,000 feet above sea level to mountain peaks at 5,000 feet. "There are no line-of-sight views of existing microwave towers from the sites," Braun said. "And in the case of La Jolla, we didn’t even have access to electric grid power on the mountain ridge edge of the reservation." That necessity prompted HPWREN staff to design a system of solar arrays and batteries for beaming digital signals where land-based lines aren’t practical. After first testing the solar setup last fall, the team deployed it in December on Palomar Mountain, which looms above the La Jolla reservation. La Jolla tribal members worked closely with the HPWREN team to prepare the solar-powered system and antennae that would provide the reservation's learning center with high-speed Internet connectivity. Now young and old alike gather in the La Jolla and Pala learning centers to surf the Internet at lightning speed. "The UC San Diego collaboration with La Jolla provides an opportunity for our learning center to receive access to technology and capabilities that we otherwise would not have in our remote county area," said Jack Musick, La Jolla tribal chairman. "We look forward to building educational programs that allow children and adults to take advantage of the connectivity." The project is exciting, Braun said, "because it's an interdisciplinary effort to design a network that -- though experimental -- is robust enough to be relied upon by researchers under even very adverse conditions, including catastrophic earthquakes. HPWREN is developing such a system for geophysicists, astronomers and ecologists, while demonstrating that the same tools can connect under-served educational users at remote locations like the Pala and La Jolla reservations."
The La Jolla Native American Reservation's Learning Center.
A larger version is here.
December 2000 installation of a solar-powered wireless network relay station on Palomar Mountain.
A larger version is here.
HPWREN solar-powered wireless network relay after installation. Each grid antenna pictured measures 24 inches by 40 inches.
A larger version is here.
The route by which HPWREN connects the Pala Learning Center to UC San Diego with wireless high-speed Internet. The antenna on the roof of the Pala Learning Center communicates with an identical unit located atop Mount Woodson via an intermediary relay point on Pala Mountain.
A larger version is here.
Hans-Werner, HPWREN principal investigator, adjusting the radio transmitter atop Pala Mountain.
A larger version is here.
HPWREN's wide-area, wireless network backbone topology in southern California. Backbone nodes connect to a number of research sites in scientific disciplines ranging from astronomy and earthquake research to ecology, and also to hard-to-reach education sites like the La Jolla and Pala Native American Reservations.
A larger version is here.
A HPWREN-enabled Internet class at the La Jolla learning center.
A larger version is here. For more about HPWREN, see: http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/
For photos from the La Jolla site, see: http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/Photos/
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