Joaqlin Estus
ICT

ANCHORAGE — Like much of rural America, Indian Country is under- and unserved as far as internet service goes.

The federal government is handing out billions of dollars to try and turn that around.

However, it will take more than money, say experts. It will take creative thinking, trusted partners, and a long-term vision to make the most of the funding.

Why there’s poor or no service

Kevin Hamer is general manager of the Yukon Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta Tribal Broadband Consortium, a nonprofit tribal organization headquartered in Bethel, Alaska.

Like other rural areas, the region lacks internet services for a range of reasons.

Number one, Hamar said, “it’s expensive.” He explained that creating infrastructure to get from a point where there’s internet connectivity to a point where it’s needed — or building out the “middle mile,” as it’s called — is costly.

Where he lives, “it’s not just the miles and the distance or the permitting across frozen tundra and wetlands and a national wildlife refuge. It’s also the return on the investment to whoever is building that infrastructure,” Hamar said.

“In order for it to be profitable for one of the existing telecommunications carriers to make that expensive middle-mile investment, they need to get a return on their investment by having enough population with enough money and a population density where it’ll be profitable for them to provide that service,” he said.

“Without grants, without federal funding, that’s just not going to happen in the Y-K Delta. It’s too expensive,” Hamar said.

In addition to low population density, villages in the region are disconnected from each other and from the outside world, Hamar said.

“There are no roads connecting our villages or connecting our YKD (Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta) communities with the outside world, not just to each other, but to the outside world. They’re what I call infrastructure islands. Our villages are completely autonomous. They’re not connected to other villages through power lines, through roads, through water or sewer or any of that infrastructure.”

Some of the effects

The lack of high speed internet cuts off people from ”everything from education, access to healthcare, access to the digital economy, remote jobs. All of those things require a stable, affordable high-quality broadband internet connection. And if you don’t have one, you’ve been excluded from all of those benefits that everyone with high speed internet takes for granted,” Hamar said. “So all of those things are denied to our tribal communities without affordable access to high speed internet.”

Problem extends across Indian Country

Unfortunately, that is par for the course in most of Indian Country, said Joseph Valandra, of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Valandra is president and CEO of Tribal Ready, a Native American-owned and governed company providing communication network design and delivery to high-cost rural areas.

Speaking at a Broadband Breakfast online panel discussion on March 8, he said slow or nonexistent broadband connectivity is the condition “for tribes in Nevada, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, some parts of Arizona, Northern California—and certainly most of Alaska.”

“You can’t upload or download files. And if a large file is attempted to be delivered, it often doesn’t even show up, or it takes hours to download just a simple PDF document. But most of the time there is none or it’s so slow that it’s just rudimentary,” Valandra said.

Money becoming available

Change is coming in the form of billions of dollars in federal funding. The Federal Communications Commission and National Telecommunications and other agencies have distributed and continue to grant hundreds of millions of dollars, some of it specifically for tribes, to fill the digital gap. (See this guide to funding put together by the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University.)

Challenges Remain

Still, speaking at a Broadband Breakfast panel on May 31, Lori Adams, vice president of Broadband Policy & Funding Strategy, Nokia, said money won’t reach every location or solve every problem.

“It won’t. But it’s certainly a hundred billion dollars more funding than we’ve ever had before in the market at the same time, right? And so there’s plenty of opportunity there,” Adams said.

She said grant amounts from one program might not be enough for an ideal such as underground fiber optic cable, and people may be tempted to simply get the most broadband to the most people in the shortest time.

However, “I would challenge the tribal communities and rural communities to really avoid looking for the quick fix and to put together grant funding applications and seek grant funds for those long-term sustainable networks,” Adams said.

Valandra said once tribes obtain funding they face other hurdles. Supply chain disruptions are making it difficult to get materials for construction, and inflation is eating into the numbers that were in the grant application that led to the award. ”Most projects are going to have to be reevaluated, in some cases, rescaled because of inflation and the supply chain issue,” he said.

Role of states

Some of the grants will only go to areas identified on maps that show under- and unserved communities. Valandra said tribes need to be involved with states and the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, in the mapping process.

“If Indian Country is not accurately represented as being unserved, which intuitively and empirically most of it is unserved, then states will be shortchanged on the allocations that they should receive from NTIA (the National Telecommunications and Information Administration),” Valandra said.

A related concern is about the $42.5 billion in funding that is dependent on grant programs being created by states. States and territories were given funding to begin planning programs to allocate funds to tribes and others to develop internet service networks. Some states and tribes have uneasy or contentious relationships that can hamper partnerships, Valandra said.

Alaska stands out

When asked which states are doing well to address tribal needs, Valandra said only one comes to mind. “I hate to say that — I wish I could think of 40 — but I can only think of one right now…. and that’s Alaska. They have a real effort to try to reach the Native communities in Alaska.”

Thomas Lochner is director of the Alaska Broadband Office. On its website the office said it is looking to provide quality service and lower costs, and to make the most of funding programs. Its aim is to make sure that “all Alaskans not only have access to broadband, but have the training and the tools to be able to use that broadband in a meaningful way to be a participant in the digital economy,” Lochner said.

Urban areas in Alaska are relatively well-served so the focus of the 4-person state broadband office has been on rural areas, which are mostly Alaska Native.

Lochner said, “we want to allow folks to keep their culture, to be able to stay in their village, and also to take full advantage of the digital economy if they so choose. We are going to be very careful and make sure that this is something that is sustainable for the people of the state of Alaska for 20 years or more.”

“There’s a 10,000 year rich culture, communities that have been on the land for 10,000 years and they’ve been bypassed in the digital age. There is a harmony that can be had, I believe, if folks want to take advantage of it, between the digital age and working where your history is,” he said.

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