[1st-mile-nm] Microsoft + Sacred Wind attack digital divide in rural NM

[Richard Lowenberg]

Microsoft, Sacred Wind attack digital divide in rural NM

By: Kevin Robinson-Avila / Journal Staff Writer 6 days ago

(See the article for photos)

https://www-abqjournal-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.abqjournal.com/1333920/microsoft-sacred-wind-attack-digital-divide.html/amp

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Albuquerque-based Sacred Wind Communications is 
partnering with Microsoft Corp. to provide wireless broadband to remote 
New Mexico communities through unused TV spectrum.

Sacred Wind will install Microsoft technology to tap into “TV white 
spaces,” or unused UHF and VHF broadcast spectrum, to potentially 
provide high-speed internet for the first time to up to 40,000 rural 
households over the next eight years, Sacred Wind CEO John Badal told 
the Journal.

“This technology allows us to leap frog over older technologies to get 
broadband to more rural areas,” Badal said. “Microsoft’s equipment costs 
about the same as other technologies widely used today, but it has much 
farther reach. The radio waves travel longer distances, and they can go 
through thick foliage, penetrate walls and roll over hills.”

The Federal Communications Commission made UHF and VHF spectrum 
available for broadband several years ago. But new equipment to manage 
carrier-grade broadband signals with enough capacity to satisfy 
customers was needed by providers like Sacred Wind to tap into TV white 
spaces, Badal said.

With Microsoft equipment in hand, the availability of TV spectrum could 
now open a lot more rural communities to affordable, fixed wireless 
service.

“Those frequencies are being used in urban areas, but they’re unused and 
available where there are no local TV channels, which is most of rural 
America,” Badal said.

The partnership is part of the Microsoft Airband Initiative, which aims 
to expand broadband to 3 million unserved people by July 2022. Under the 
initiative, launched in July 2017, Microsoft has signed partnerships 
with local service providers in 16 states. That will grow to 25 states 
by year-end.

“The broadband gap is hindering tribal and rural communities from 
reaping the social and economic benefits that come with access to the 
internet,” said Shelley McKinley, Microsoft general manager of 
technology and corporate responsibility, in a prepared statement. “Our 
partnership with Sacred Wind Communications will bring reliable, 
high-speed Internet to underserved communities in New Mexico so that 
they can access the same opportunities as their urban counterparts.”

Sacred Wind will install transmitting microwave equipment on existing 
towers, and will also build a few new tower sites. It will attach 
receiving antennae on customer’s roofs.

Microsoft and Sacred Wind will share installation costs and revenue from 
the new service, Badal said.

Pricing has not been determined yet.

The technology will first be deployed in Grants, Milan, San Rafael, 
Yatahey and areas within the Navajo Nation’s Church Rock Chapter. 
Depending on success in that first-phase, which begins in late summer, 
the partners will expand service to more Navajo communities.

Sacred Wind, which launched in 2006, is the only private 
telecommunications firm in the country dedicated to providing services 
solely on tribal lands.



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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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