The Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona covers more than 1.5 million acres of desert land, with most residents living in villages atop arid mesas.
Underground is a network of copper wires that provide telephone and internet services. Hopi Telecommunications, which he bought the company that was installing them in 2004, has struggled to upgrade its networks to broadband speeds since then.
Hopi Telecommunications serves both the Hopi Reservation and portions of the surrounding Navajo Nation. To expand access, the company provided free internet to students during the COVID-19 pandemic and began offering discounted prices to residents through a federal program.
But copper lines, like fiber optic cables, do not reach all residents on the reservation, nor do they provide the fastest service. Hopi Telecommunications received two federal grants, one from the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program and one from Local Utility Services, to provide fiber directly to homes. However, the project, which began in September, will not be completed until sometime in 2025.
“Having higher bandwidth is very important to us, and we can’t do that with copper,” said Alicia Ubela, the company’s service order coordinator. “It’s literally like having to pull a vein out of the ground and relay a new vein.”
Indigenous nations have historically been slow to access high-speed internet due to cost and barriers such as incomplete broadband coverage data. Inequalities have become even more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when broadband internet service has become a critical lifeline for people confined to their homes.
So some indigenous peoples, such as the Hopi, are taking matters into their own hands by building their own networks that provide high-speed internet. It is also leveraging recent increases in state and federal funding to expand broadband across the country.
“It’s within our mission to be able to be self-sufficient and grow so that we can provide the types of services that are needed here,” Uebela said. “And it’s happening, albeit in small baby steps.”
Broadband technologies such as fiber networks, wireless networks, and satellites can transfer data much faster than dial-up Internet over copper telephone lines.
More than 18% of people living on tribal lands did not have access to broadband technology in 2020, compared to about 4% of people living on non-tribal lands, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. could not be accessed. GAO’s previous report found that Federal Communications Commission data overstated broadband internet access on tribal lands, making it difficult to obtain additional funding and assistance. In response, authorities analyzed the data.
Some states are trying to support tribal efforts. In 2023, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, and Oregon enacted legislation to streamline funding and support broadband expansion for local governments, including tribes and underserved communities. .
One of the measures in California’s Digital Equity Bill of Rights, a first-of-its-kind bill signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October, will help the state ensure equal access to broadband for all Californians. It outlines how this should be ensured. The new law was promoted by the California Emerging Technology Fund, a nonprofit organization aimed at closing the state’s digital divide, the growing gap between those who have access to digital technology and those who do not.
But Matthew Rantanen, director of technology for the Southern California Association of Tribal Chairmen, said there is still work to be done nationally. Rantanen, who is of Cree descent, has been working with Indigenous communities across the country to secure broadband access for 20 years.
“As you sit there and physically build your network, you run into a lot of questions like, ‘Why can’t we get this funding when other people can?'” “The tribes don’t have access to this spectrum,” Rantanen said. “So we start to fight these parts of policy and find that there are a lot of parts that need to be sorted out.”
Rantanen hosts Tribal Broadband Bootcamps to help tribes build and maintain wireless networks within their communities.
“If you don’t have access to resources, you can’t be a part of society,” he said. The Internet “is inextricably linked to water, a roof over your head, and electricity to be a citizen in this day and age.”
Build your own network
The Government Accountability Office report says the FCC data overstates tribes’ access to broadband services, which limits the ability of the federal government and tribal leaders to provide the best assistance.
BroadbandNow, a data collection and research organization, estimates that 42 million Americans do not have access to broadband internet.
“It’s not just Indian Country, it’s actually all over the United States,” said Frank Martinez, Connected Nation’s vice president of strategic initiatives.
For more than 20 years, Connected Nation, a national nonprofit organization, has been working with federal, state, local, and tribal agencies to help close the digital divide. Martinez, who grew up on the Navajo Reservation, which spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, said there is no one-size-fits-all solution for Native tribes that vary in size, geography and culture.
“There are a lot of similarities, but there are also a lot of differences,” Martinez said. “I think trying to prescribe broadband solutions that accommodate a wide range of cultures and nations can be very complex.”
From the Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Idaho to the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe of New York state, some Native American tribes have been successful in developing their own infrastructure for a better internet, according to the National Institute for Rural Independence. Detailed in the 2021 report. A nonprofit organization that works to “build local power to fight corporate domination.”
In South Dakota, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe recently received more than $48 million in grants to install a fiber and LTE network connecting 1,526 underserved American Indian households. Democrat Sean Bordeaux, a South Dakota state senator and tribal member, told Stateline that the new network would allow the area’s current provider, which has a monopoly, to determine the price and quality of service for all area residents. He said it can be prevented.
Paying for networks and providing affordability to residents is a perennial challenge for tribes, says Tribes, a Native-owned and governed company that helps tribes secure access to broadband funding and resources. said Joe Balandra, chairman and CEO of the company Tribal Ready.
Even though internet providers serving Native Americans receive federal and state subsidies, they don’t necessarily funnel that money to local tribes, Valandra said.
“Tribes are realizing that it’s not going to happen unless they grab this bull by the horns and find a way to do it themselves or find a trusted partner to help them do it right.” said Valandra. “Funding existing providers hasn’t worked in the past, and I don’t believe it will work now.”
Tribal Ready can help identify funding and programs that allow Native Americans to build networks that are fully under tribal control, if possible. Valandra said the goal is to give tribes the power to regulate broadband like other public utilities.
“I think over the next 10 years or so we’ll see more tribes launching their own public works authorities to encompass this, because it’s a benefit to their communities,” he said.
Money and staffing challenges
Until recently, broadband providers and tribal leaders were primarily focused on building out broadband networks, said H. Trostle, senior policy analyst at the Minneapolis Fed’s Indian National Development Center. Discussions are now turning to how to maintain these networks in the long term.
Trostle praised the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program, which provides subsidies for broadband service for low-income households. The subsidy is up to $75 per month for households living on eligible Indigenous lands and appears as a credit on the family’s monthly internet bill.
But the FCC said this month that if Congress doesn’t provide additional funding for the program soon, the agency will begin winding it down and millions of households will lose their benefits.
To attract more customers, some tribal broadband companies are expanding their services beyond tribal lands, Trostle said.
“But one of the growing challenges is operating and maintenance costs that never go away,” Trostle said. “For wireless networks, this is particularly difficult because while the capital costs are low, the operating costs are very high. So this is a very difficult policy point.”
Even with a native broadband network in place, finding workers can be difficult. One of the problems is the lack of housing. Hopi Telecom’s Mr. Yubela also said the company trains almost all the technicians that join the company, since few people on the reservation have the necessary education.
“These are our struggles, but again, we always somehow break through and get through it,” Yubela said.
