Building a broadband network on tribal reservations, out in the middle of nowhere, is nothing short of an amazing feat. First you need money. Most tribal communities get their funding through either one of or a combination of the following: university funding (such as the University of California, San Diego program), private grants (like Hewlett-Packard), tribal capital investment, or federal funding. Then you need to get people to build the infrastructure. Most people think you go to the store, buy a computer, take it home, plug it in to the network, and BOOM! you have internet. It’s actually a much bigger process than that. “When thinking about setting up Internet networks, systems designers conceptualize in four dimensions: what is underground, the layout of the visible terrain, how packets might travel through airwaves and, in some cases, across airspace, and all of this over measures of time” (Duarte, 54). Then you need people to build the network infrastructure. “These include network administrators, content designers, policy experts, entrepreneurs, vendors and distributors of hardware and software, construction workers and contractors, industry and university researchers, lobbyists, system and interface designers, and Internet consumers of all kinds” (Duarte, 55). Thanks to such efforts there are at least 20 tribal owned ISP’s (internet service providers) in Indian Country with more in the early developmental stages. Broadband Internet continues to be limited in remote Indian reservations. Setting up broadband infrastructure on native land continues to be a matter of strategy. In the end “there should be more than 568 different solutions to acquiring broadband access in Indian Country” (Duarte, 76).
The purpose of building a broadband network infrastructure on Indian reservations is so that Native Americans can continue to sustain themselves across four areas: educational, cultural, financial and economic development, and infrastructure. One group, the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association (SCTCA) could provide tribal administration buildings, schools, and libraries with free internet access. They could build an intranet archive where the SCTCA’s “nineteen tribes could post photos, news, videos, and knowledge of tribal ways” (Duarte, 55). The SCTCA also created their own Internet service provider called the Southern California Tribal Technologies for tribal residents. Remaining grant funds were used to build media labs, a digital print shop, a graphic design studio where tribal members could take graphic design classes. They also built a digital recording studio and computing labs where members could take basic computing classes as well as Cisco network certification courses. Profits were generated to create local jobs and support network enhancements. Overall, setting up a broadband infrastructure has helped the tribes improve their communities educationally, culturally, and financially.
Works Cited
Duarte, Marisa Elena., Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet Across Indian Country, University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington, 2017