Quinault Nation Went from Lacking Broadband Access to Building the Pacific NW’s New Landing Point for Transpacific Internet Cables

Roughly one-third of the Quinault Reservation lacks internet access at home. The remaining two-thirds have service below the FCC’s minimum broadband standard. Now Quinault is building infrastructure that one of the world’s largest technology companies needs to connect North America and Asia.

Amazon Web Services will own Sta’O’Nuk, a subsea cable planned to connect Washington and Japan in 2029. Quinault, through Toptana Technologies, is constructing the Tribally-owned landing station where that cable will connect with terrestrial fiber networks.

Sta’O’Nuk, which means “lightning serpent” in the Quinault language, will be the facility’s first cable, but Toptana is building something larger than an AWS terminal. The open-access station is designed to accommodate additional subsea systems, while its backhaul network will connect the Washington coast with major interconnection markets in Seattle and Hillsboro.

The landing station won’t itself connect individual homes, but Toptana says the infrastructure is intended to enable affordable high-speed service for Quinault and other underserved communities.

Quinault’s geography made this possible. It’s one of only four Tribal Nations in the United States with coastal access and adjudicated ocean rights. But geography alone didn’t create the project. The Nation began exploring broadband infrastructure in 2017 and created Toptana in 2022 with Quinault’s business committee approving the organizing of Toptana under the Tulalip Tribe’s LLC law in 2025.

Tribal law supplied the institutional foundation. Quinault invested in Toptana, remains its sole shareholder, supplied land and rights-of-way, and retained authority over major contracts. Tribal officials have also described an approved profit-sharing arrangement intended to return revenue to the Tribal government.

Quinault began this work because its own community lacked adequate broadband. It’s now becoming an owner of the physical infrastructure that will carry communications across the Pacific and into the Pacific Northwest.