TL;DR

  • Toptana Technologies has been named a winner of the 2026 Broadband Communities Tribal Lands Award.
  • The award recognizes Toptana’s work developing new fiber and subsea connectivity infrastructure in Washington State.
  • Its network is being built to serve the Quinault Indian Nation while giving the community a direct stake in the infrastructure.
  • The project will connect the Washington coast with Seattle, Hillsboro and international markets across the Pacific.

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For the Quinault Indian Nation, building better connectivity starts with a simple question: who gets to decide what that infrastructure looks like and who benefits from it?

Toptana Technologies, the Indigenous-owned telecommunications infrastructure company owned by the Quinault Indian Nation, is taking a different approach. Rather than viewing broadband infrastructure simply as something delivered to a community, Toptana is building and owning infrastructure that can serve the community while creating opportunities beyond it.

That work has earned Toptana the 2026 Broadband Communities Tribal Lands Award, which recognizes efforts to bring modern telecommunications services to tribal lands while respecting sovereignty and addressing gaps in connectivity.

“From the beginning, Toptana has been about creating greater opportunity for the Quinault Indian Nation through connectivity while maintaining our sovereignty and protecting the resources that are central to our people and way of life,” said Tyson Johnston, 1st Council person of the QIN and Ex Officio Board Member. “This recognition is meaningful because it reflects both what we are building and why we are building it to create lasting benefits for our community and future generations.”

The infrastructure behind that effort is already taking shape.

Toptana has completed an approximately 200-mile fiber route running north to south between Seattle and Hillsboro. The company is also advancing an approximately 90-mile east-to-west route that will connect its planned Washington State Cable Landing Station with the I-5 corridor.

The cable landing station is particularly significant for the region. It will be the first new cable landing station developed in Washington State in more than 25 years and is designed to support as many as four subsea cable systems. Once in service, it will provide a new landing point for cables connecting the Pacific Northwest with markets throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

The terrestrial network will carry that international connectivity inland, linking the Washington coast with major network hubs in Seattle and Hillsboro.

“Toptana represents a different approach to developing critical communications infrastructure, one where the community is not simply served by the infrastructure but has ownership and a direct role in its development,” said Joel Ogren, Toptana General Manager and CEO of Assured Communications. “The combination of subsea and terrestrial connectivity creates opportunities not only to improve access locally, but also to establish the region as an important new connection point within the global communications network.”

For the Quinault Indian Nation and surrounding communities, the value of the project will extend well beyond the network itself. Better access to high-speed connectivity can support students and educators, expand telemedicine options, help local companies reach customers and create new opportunities for people working in the region.

Those goals are closely tied to why Toptana was created in the first place. The company is building communications infrastructure with the Quinault Indian Nation involved not just as a customer, but as an owner.

The Broadband Communities recognition puts a national spotlight on that approach. For Toptana, however, the work continues with fiber routes under construction, a new cable landing point taking shape and a long-term objective of giving the Pacific Northwest—and the communities connected to it—a stronger position in the global communications network.

Learn more in the full announcement here.