American Indian Advocates Call for Separate Broadband Plan
The FCC should establish a separate Tribal Broadband Plan within the National Broadband Plan, the National Congress of American Indians and other groups said. Native Public Media, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative and the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association offered additional ex parte comments on the broadband plan. The comments built on an earlier filing (CD Nov 12 p5) on an FCC request for comment on high-speed access on tribal lands.
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Tribal lands “encompass unique conditions that necessitate distinct economic, policy and regulatory approaches,” the groups said. “Critical infrastructure rarely has come to Tribal Lands without significant federal involvement, investment, and regulatory oversight. Substantial barriers to telecommunications deployment are prevalent throughout Native lands including rural, rugged terrain that increases the cost of installing infrastructure, limited financial resources that deter investment by commercial providers, a shortage of technically trained Tribal members to plan and implement improvements, and difficulty in obtaining rights-of-way to deploy infrastructure across some Tribal lands.”
The first step should be acquiring more data on broadband deployment in Indian Country, the groups said. “Current FCC data collection mechanisms are insufficient, since they are focused on residential deployment more so than identifying whether key governmental hubs are adequately connected.”
The government can help by targeting funds for broadband mapping and planning for tribal lands, “preferably” through the NTIA-administered State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program, the groups said. The commission should seek “precise and accurate information” from tribal governments and their offices on the deployment of broadband. The agency should also perform a spectrum review of tribal lands: “There is no adequate census of available spectrum for wireless broadband use,” the filing said. The groups seek creation of a Native Nations/FCC Broadband Taskforce. “Tribal communities encompass unique and distinct challenges compared with other un-served and underserved areas,” they said. The groups also repeated calls for a special Tribal Office within the commission.
The issues raised by the groups may be getting traction at the regulator. In November, FCC broadband plan coordinator Blair Levin called the lack of broadband connectivity in Indian country a “tragedy” that must be addressed by the FCC (CD Nov 20 p2). Commissioner Michael Copps said Native American issues must have a high profile in the broadband plan (CD Dec 7 p5). - Howard Buskirk