How boot camps are helping to address the historic gap in internet access on US tribal lands

There’s a home movie theater with orange walls and plush recliners at the top of a steep hill on Matthew Rantanen’s ranch in Southern California. But on a recent afternoon, people weren’t flocking to the room to watch a movie or to escape the scorching heat, they were shining a beam of light through more than 55,000 feet (17 kilometers) of fiber optic cable coiled up in the corner.

The demonstration took place during a hands-on broadband training for tribal nations near rural Aguanga, about 53 miles (85 kilometers) north of San Diego.