Basic online connectivity is an issue in many parts of the Indigenous world. It’s important for these tribes to connect with each other in order to “share information among themselves and with other Native peoples in order to strengthen knowledge of the homeland, histories, Native languages, spiritualities and ceremonial cycles, and ancestral lineage” (Duarte 115) While this may be the case, it is still unfathomable by many computer scientists, network engineers, and researchers to put broadband on Native land. This is often because of ignorance. Many people still cannot realize that many “parts of the United States still lack the level of access necessary for basic public safety, creativity, and productivity” (Duarte 91). We can see this lack of vision in the National Broadband Map. This map “includes the political boundaries of states and counties but not of sovereign tribal lands. These sovereign lands are largely invisible on the coverage map and therefore invisible to policy makers and network technicians.” (Duarte 91). Broadband infrastructure is also very difficult to construct. They are expensive, costing into the millions of dollars. They are challenging for technicians. Most of all, they are a huge commitment for the tribes. Tribal leaders must be able to see how a broadband infrastructure will benefit the community and solve many of their difficult problems. For the tribal leaders, it has to be more than just being able to connect to the Internet. One such solution was in the ability to process government grants. “When the Federal Register moved to a primarily online mode of dissemination, tribal departments found that they were missing out on notices of grant opportunities.” ”TDVnet allowed tribal departments to move from a paper-based grants application cycle to an electronic application cycle”(Duarte 94).
Works Cited
Duarte, Marisa Elena., Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet Across Indian Country, University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington, 2017