Connectivity in Ulukhaktok in the Arctic Circle: An Althea Cellular Case Study
In the town of Ulukhaktok, nestled along the coast of Victoria Island in the Arctic Circle, something extraordinary is happening. With a population of four hundred and eight residents, this remote community has become a shining example of how Althea’s KeyLTE is revolutionizing connectivity in the most challenging of areas. Read the story of how this partnership came to be and why it stands as a testament to the transformative power of connectivity of both people and technology.
Connectivity in the Arctic Circle
The Ulukhatok community is very remote, with most supplies and people commuting in by a small plane. The remoteness of Ulukhaktok posed challenges for traditional network carriers. Though they offered 2G/3G coverage, national carriers struggled to provide good, sustainable coverage and found investing in the necessary infrastructure unfeasible. It became increasingly important that a community like Ulukhaktok, with connectivity barriers similar to other remote communities, have the tools to build and maintain the network infrastructure themselves.
The people of Ulukhaktok needed a solution that could make cellular coverage more reliable, ensuring stable connection even in the Arctic Circle. In 2018, when this quest for stronger connectivity began, few were even thinking of applying community connectivity solutions to the shadowy, siloed world of 3GPP (cellular) connected networks. Because of the cost of the technology, the hardware, and the know-how, cellular remained inaccessible for all but the most tenacious and determined. And then, a group of visionaries, builders, and technologists came together to change this.
A Bold Community Model
Well before the global spotlight on connectivity needs brought about by the COVID pandemic, the Internet Society (ISOC) had been at the forefront of popularizing the idea that communities, even smaller, rural or remote communities, could have viable models of connectivity that they build and maintain. By 2018, this idea of global connectivity was radical, shaking the monolith of big telecom. But, it was gaining traction as fixed wireless hardware and ease of use had democratized the building of networks throughout the globe. Cooperative economic models, applied to farming and other infrastructure, provided a framework for new, more sustainable community-focused networks.
Mark Buell, then head of the Internet Society’s efforts to share these models and empower connectivity in First Nations and Indigenous communities in North America, began working with the community of Ulukhaktok during this time. Together, they explored the multi-dimensional problem of not only the logistics of connectivity in such a remote area, but also the core principles of building connectivity in a sovereign and community-focused way.
Enter the Technologists, Builders, and KeyLTE
Farther south, in the rainy and moss-covered terrain around Seattle and Tacoma, Dr. Spencer Sevilla, Dr. Jason Young, and Professor Keurtis Heimerl of University of Washington (UW) had been iterating on trailblazing, open-source technology for community cellular networks and, by 2018, had started to deploy the iterations of community cellular on Open5GS.
United by a shared ethos and approach, the Althea team, still in its early stages of growth, joined the UW team for the first time to iterate on the Open5GS and cellular platforms, launching a collaborative pilot project in Tacoma, Washington, in 2019.
“We all spent time on the rainy rooftops and in the basements in the early days of 2019, pioneering what we believed to be a better way to build telecom infrastructure, democratizing access to the building blocks of networks, by building with communities, not just for them.” — Deborah Simpier, co-founder of the Althea platform.
This audacious vision–that democratized technology could empower communities to fund, own, and operate telecom in better ways–was coming to life. The teams began expanding on this platform, adding a dynamic routing protocol and payment platform. This became a holistic “in a box” network, ready for the rigors of production deployment, and just under a year later, in 2020, “KeyLTE’ was born.
This work was revolutionary. Before this point, core tech to LTE networks cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and was a mystery to everyone except a very few people employed within the sector. The Althea team recognized the critical role that LTE/5G Connectivity brings to the tech stack, as part of a whole, which enables connected networks to devices, handsets, and even broadband.
At its heart, Althea is system design: an open, interconnected routing and payment system that works together with each hardware component, from the core of the internet, at the Internet Exchange, able to utilize fiber, cabling, fixed wireless and LTE/5G holistically, while making it easy and affordable for anyone to use.
Enabling this sovereign and community-held infrastructure is so critical in the First Nations’ remote communities like Ulukhaktok.
Satellites and Community-Focused Infrastructure
Armed with this new technology of KeyLTE, a bold vision, and the backing of both ISOC and the NSF, Sevilla and Buell began to work together to strategize on deploying connectivity solutions in Ulukhaktok and overcome the logistical challenges of backhaul.
Technology at the edge must physically connect back to the rest of the internet, and providing this “backhaul” link has been one of the biggest challenges for remote places. For a remote community like Ulukhaktok, that’s nearly impossible with anything other than satellite.
Satellite connectivity has historically been large hardware, expensive, and high latency, yet something new was on the horizon: Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. These LEO satellites promised higher throughput and lower latency connection than the previous geosynchronous orbit satellites in a lighter weight form factor, which are crucial factors in providing backhaul to challenging areas.
However, a reliable satellite backhaul is just one component of a holistic connectivity solution. Though these technological advancements made the backhaul less expensive and more performant, it’s difficult for communities to have sovereignty over their communications in LEO technology. People interact with the internet not through routers or radios but through devices that interact with the connectivity hardware. You can’t have holistic connectivity without both the reliable backhaul and the infrastructure needed to connect devices at the edge, which the team created with KeyLTE.
Connecting Ulukhaktok
Despite the creation of LEO technology years before, it wasn’t until 2023 that a satellite unit covered the town of Ulukhaktok at a latitude of slightly over 70 degrees North. With this new coverage in place, the team began to build the Althea cellular network using Starlink, mass-produced small satellites in LEO, as the backhaul. Coupled with Althea KeyLTE core, LTE radios, and licensed spectrum, this private, community-focused cellular network enabled connectivity in a way people in Ulukhaktok hadn’t seen before. Before the Althea network, residents had poor 2G/3G coverage, but with this new network, residents could connect at speeds and reliability of 4G, similar to that of a major city.
Beyond cell coverage, the community can now successfully use other technological devices, like cameras, IoT, and smart vehicles. Anything with a SIM card can connect back to the community Althea cellular network. And the network’s impact goes beyond personal communication. It has the potential to connect public safety equipment, vehicles, and remote IoT devices, fostering a more interconnected and resilient community.
Not only was the service better and more reliable, but Sevilla and Buell’s team took an educational approach to the work so that the community could make informed decisions and maintain the infrastructure themselves. Building on previous work Sevilla did with the People’s Centered Internet and the Tribal Resource Center, they set up workshops and provided access to a wealth of resources about building and maintaining the network. Together, the team and the people of Ulukhaktok built a physical network and a network of supportive people whose knowledge, support, and expertise are shared.
A Story of Connectivity and Possibilities
Covered in snow and ice, the LTE radios in Ulukhaktok broadcast a structure of sovereign infrastructure, designed, built, and operated in a bold new way — by the community itself, empowered by a revolutionary new way to look at information systems.
The network design and implementation were built together with the community, informed by the choices and use cases specific to Ulukhaktok. Although network architecture may look similar, the technology stack must be flexible enough to build the right solution for the job. It’s this flexibility, encapsulated in an accessible “in a box” solution, that stands out for its affordability and simplicity of management. In a remote community, this self-sufficiency is a crucial factor in ensuring the resilience and sustainability of the cellular infrastructure.
With our community-centered approach developed through our experiences building with teams like UW, ISOC, and with communities like Ulukhaktok, Althea has been able to bring solutions to communities looking for sustainable, democratized connectivity:
- In 2020, the advancements and work that UoW, the Althea team, and others had made in cellular technology gained wider adoption with the opening of Band41 to Tribal broadband in the United States and CBRS, a dynamic spectrum allocation openly available in B48.
- In 2020–2021, Dr. Sevilla and the Althea team worked closely together to iterate on the core technologies in LTE in the newly opened spectrum opportunities. Sevilla, partnering with the pioneering work of Matthew Rantanen from the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association (SCTCA) and the Tribal Digital Village (TDVNet), ISOC, and Christopher Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance ( ILSR), led the way in bringing a number of these approaches to life in the Tribal Broadband Bootcamps, an intimate hands-on networking event held over several days in a local area.
- In 2021, the Althea and Dr. Sevilla kicked off the Tribal Resource Center, together with George Mason University and People-Centered Internet. Like an old-fashioned tent revival, the in-person events helped spread the knowledge of the choices available for building networks — that the reliance on big corporations or unwieldy expensive cores was no longer needed.
- Since 2022, Althea has partnered with Compudopt, a nonprofit organization empowering youth through technology, to provide internet in CBRS to low-income households throughout Dallas.
These production use cases allow iteration and evolution by the Althea, UW, and other teams, merging our knowledge and experience to build robust and reliable solutions in the way that open-source technology is known for. And, unlike other efforts to democratize the LTE/5G stack, it is the user-focused design that builds technology that works and is widely adopted.
Ulukhaktok’s journey with Althea is more than just about technology — it’s a narrative of empowerment and system design that works for people in places where traditional solutions fall short, highlighting the transformative power of both connectivity and community.
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*Co-authored by Deborah Simpier and Devon Malick
