Tribal Groups Ask FCC for Native Nations/FCC Broadband Task Force
Native Public Media and the National Congress of American Indians want the FCC to set up a native nations/FCC broadband task force, they said in comments to the commission on a notice seeking comment on high-speed access on tribal lands. They also asked the FCC to create a special tribal office, to reserve seats on the Federal State Board on Universal Service for tribal members and to create an Enhanced Tribal Lands Broadband Fund Program under the Universal Service Fund. Tribes should have priority access to spectrum and the FCC should remove barriers that would keep Native Americans from using the TV white spaces for broadband, they said.
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“Tribes face unique challenges in overcoming the Digital Divide, beginning with the fact that even access to Plain Old Telephone Service is still a challenge, and broadband penetration may be as low as five percent,” the groups said. There’s “scant” information about broadband in Indian country, they said.
Native Public Media said it plans to release Nov. 19 a major study on the subject and provide it to the FCC for development of the National Broadband Plan. The report will include results of a survey of 120 tribes asking about their access to broadband, and six case studies of broadband projects to serve tribal lands. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Benton Foundation paid for the research. The study will show that programs targeting tribal lands work, the groups said. “The current successful networks are emblematic of a long history of Native self-sufficiency and pioneering creative solutions to fulfill the needs of their communities,” the groups said. “Faced with limited resources and means, motivated individuals have provided their communities with new ways to connect and communicate with each other.”
Alaska’s Kodiak Kenai Cable Co. also filed comments on broadband on tribal lands. The company said it had filed for money, from the Rural Utilities Service’s Broadband Infrastructure Program and the NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunity Program, for a new undersea fiber cable to provide broadband to western and northern Alaska. “Rural parts of the country, including Alaska, require a more robust technology than satellites are able to offer, like fiber optics terrestrial systems, for the delivery of meaningful broadband capacity,” the company said. “Because deployment of such terrestrial infrastructure cannot be financed on commercial terms … public financing is normally the only viable alternative.”
GCI telecom of Anchorage, Alaska, also said better networks are needed for tribal lands. “A key challenge in improving broadband for Alaska’s tribal lands is therefore to replace satellite middle-mile transport with technologically and economically viable terrestrial middle-mile delivery, both within these remote regions and between these regions and the Internet backbone,” the company said. “GCI is committed to using private capital to deploy modern broadband service over time to as much of these sparsely inhabited regions as possible on an economically feasible and sustainable basis. It is clear, however, that the economic viability of deploying terrestrial second/middle-mile facilities over the next five to ten years will depend at least in part on government-backed capital, sustained support programs to anchor tenants, and the addition of broadband to Lifeline-supported services.”