• Hoopa Valley Public Utilities District opened an NTIA-funded data centre on 17 July to serve as the operational hub for its tribally owned broadband network
  • A separate US$10.25 million middle-mile project will add nearly 23 miles of fibre and is intended to reduce reliance on the valley’s existing four-tower wireless route

The fact

Hoopa Valley Public Utilities District opened its new NTIA-funded data centre on 17 July in Hoopa, California. The facility will serve as the operational hub for Acorn Connected, HVPUD’s broadband provider, housing equipment used to monitor and manage the network and deliver services across the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation and nearby communities. HVPUD has not disclosed the data centre’s power capacity, rack count or redundancy specifications.

The facility is part of the Hoopa Valley Tribe’s US$65.14 million Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program award, which also supports fibre-to-the-home connections for 1,045 unserved Native American households, 64 Tribal businesses and 19 community anchor institutions. HVPUD is separately building nearly 23 miles of state-funded middle-mile fibre from Willow Creek to Weitchpec and the Yurok Reservation line. The US$10.25 million route is expected to be completed before December 2026 and is intended to reduce the valley’s reliance on its existing four-tower wireless connection by adding another route into the regional network.

The assessment

The data centre changes where HVPUD runs the network. Acorn Connected now has a dedicated local site for monitoring services and managing the fibre network as more homes and businesses are connected. Its role is operational rather than commercial: it gives the provider a fixed base for day-to-day network management.

The middle-mile build addresses a different weakness. HVPUD says the valley currently depends on four wireless relay hops to reach the wider network. The new fibre route is intended to provide another path into the region, reducing reliance on that wireless chain and giving the network more resilience if one connection is disrupted.

For BTW readers, this is less about adding a data-centre asset than making a small regional broadband network easier to run and less dependent on one transport route. Hoopa Valley is pairing local network management with new fibre connectivity, which should give Acorn Connected a stronger foundation as it expands service.

What to Watch

Watch whether HVPUD completes the 23-mile middle-mile route by December 2026 and begins moving traffic onto it. Fibre-to-the-home activations will show how quickly the local network is expanding, while any new details on routing and backup arrangements will help clarify how the new data centre and fibre link are being used. Once the route is live, outage data should show whether the valley is becoming less dependent on its existing wireless connection.