One of the more intriguing projects people are talking about these days is Toptana Technologies’ plans for a cable landing station on the West Coast of the United States. Toptana is a first-of-its-kind indigenous-owned internet infrastructure and technology company, owned by the Quinault Indian Nation (QIN) of the Pacific Northwest, a community of more than 3,000 tribal members located along the coast in northern Washington State. Its mission is to connect the digitally unconnected and provide internet access to rural communities, starting by bringing the first subsea cable landing station to Washington State in over 25 years. The team is currently building necessary backhaul network connectivity to Seattle and major data center clusters in Hillsboro, Oregon. Today we talked about the company’s plans and its underlying motivation and outlook with Tyson Johnston, who serves as Toptana’s chairman of the board. [Read more →]