How a Small IT Team Solved Juneau's Cruise-Season Dead Zone Without Hiring a Single Person

When 16,000 extra visitors a day overwhelmed cellular networks in Alaska's capital, the city turned to Northriver IT for a fully managed public Wi-Fi network that now offloads over twenty terabytes of traffic and serves 103,000-plus unique users a month

JUNEAU, Alaska, Sept. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Every summer, cruise season transforms downtown Juneau: up to sixteen thousand extra visitors a day, all reaching for their phones at once. Point-of-sale systems failed. Parking kiosks stopped working. Basic calls wouldn't connect. The downtown library became an accidental Wi-Fi hub, drawing crowds outside just to get a signal. After carriers offered no fix, the City and Borough of Juneau decided to build its own network and turned to Northriver IT to design, deploy, and manage it.

Working with Cambium Networks' ONE Network platform, Northriver IT stood up a high-density outdoor Wi-Fi 6 network anchored by 60 GHz wireless backhaul, avoiding the fiber trenching Juneau's mountainous, dock-heavy terrain would have required. Core infrastructure was live within roughly forty-five days. The network has since offloaded twenty to thirty-plus terabytes of cellular traffic and supported over 103,000 unique users in a single 30-day peak-season stretch — more than three times Juneau's year-round population with no added headcount or daily attention from the city's own IT staff.

"There was no cell phone signal or really spotty slow cell signal when the ships were in dock during summer tourism season." — Chris Murray, IT Director, City and Borough of Juneau

Seamless Passpoint 2.0 authentication let most visitors connect automatically with no password required; a detail city officials say was central to the network's success.

"We built this the way we build every network: solve the real problem, then get out of the way. Juneau's team shouldn't have to think about this Wi-Fi, and now they don't." — Chaz Hager, Northriver IT

Complaints dropped to zero during peak season. The network now runs on a seasonal schedule, remotely managed by Northriver IT with no daily lift from city staff, and Juneau is already planning coverage into more waterfront zones.

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ABOUT NORTHRIVER IT

Northriver IT is a customer-focused managed services provider specializing in secure network infrastructure, cloud solutions, and cybersecurity. With 20 years of experience, we help organizations design, implement, and manage reliable technology environments that support long-term success. www.northriverit.com.

SOURCE Northriver IT