Lael Echo-Hawk, an attorney at Garvey Schubert Barer, has been working actively with tribal leaders to give them the tools they need to explore the opportunities of bringing high-speed, broadband internet access to their organizations and communities.
Long distance communication has been around for a long time in America. Historically speaking, the Native American tribes were the first to use long distance communication by sending smoke signals across vast distances. Fast forward to the 21st century — in many areas, especially in Native communities in Washington state, most people do not have the kind of communications capabilities the rest of the nation takes for granted.
Left behind by the Broadband Revolution, there are whole towns and regions of Washington that have limited connectivity or no connectivity at all. Private utilities, telecommunications or cable companies are reluctant to invest the tens of millions of dollars to lay the fiber optic cable required to digitize the rural areas.
The statistics are alarming. Broadband coverage in Indian Country is less than 10 percent, per capita — one eighth of the national average. Many Native communities’ schools, libraries and healthcare facilities are still on dial-up, adversely impacting many aspects of business, the public sector, tribal sovereignty and self-governance.
“There are wide expanses of rural areas that are going without broadband,” says Sen. John McCoy (D-Tulalip),the ranking Democrat on the State Senate’s Energy, Environment & Telecommunications Committee. “For example, on the Makah Reservation, the connectivity issue has been moving forward and making progress and yet, on the day the students have to take tests online, the tribal government has to shut down so the kids have bandwidth to take their tests. Another example is when high school seniors from Davenport had to drive 35 miles to Spokane to find wi-fi hotspots, and stop in parking lots so they could do their homework and get their senior projects done.”
Without access to broadband, Native children are unable to receive the education or access to healthcare that their peers receive. There is an historic opportunity to begin to bridge the digital divide and bring the necessary technology and broadband coverage to the many areas of Indian Country that have long suffered from large-scale coverage gaps and a severely underdeveloped infrastructure.
Lael Echo-Hawk
Bringing Broadband to Indian Country
By Patricia Vaccarino