A $9.5 million project to install 40 miles of fiber optic line at the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Reservation helps create the infrastructure for potential industrial development.
Scott Carey, the tribal planner, says the broadband network ultimately might serve an industrial park that the tribe has planned at Wadsworth.
More immediately, the new line will improve operations at existing retailers on the reservation such as the I-80 Smokeshop.
Currently, Carey says, those stores rely on slow dial-up service to handle credit-card transactions.
A second phase of the broadband project on the reservation work that isn't yet on the drawing board might bring high-speed service to residential locations, opening the way for home-based businesses that rely on the Internet.
The first phase, which begins this week, will link 29 businesses and tribal offices in Wadsworth, Nixon and Sutcliffe.
Praxis Associates of Vallejo, Calif., is the contractor on the project. The company also is the contractor on the 583-mile Digital 395 Broadband Project project that will run between Reno and Basrstow, Calif.
Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Reservation project has been dubbed "Natukwena Nagwesenoo," in Paiute. Translated, it means "To Weave Communities Together."
Primary funding of the project came through American Reinvestment & Recovery Act grant from the Department of Commerce.
