Native Americans On Tribal Land Are 'The Least Connected' To High-Speed Internet; NPR, December 6, 2018

Hansi Lo Wang, NPR; Native Americans On Tribal Land Are 'The Least Connected' To High-Speed Internet

""The least connected"

The findings are no surprise to Traci Morris. She leads the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University, which is preparing to release a report on a new study of broadband internet service on tribal lands.

"We're the least connected. We're under-connected. We're under-served," says Morris, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Mobile phones often are the main tools to help residents on American Indian land to get online, but many communities do not have reliable cell coverage nearby. On some reservations, Morris adds, residents rely on internet service at the local library, tribal office or school.

"Folks find a way to access it. Folks are resilient," she says. "But it shouldn't be this way in the U.S. We should have the same access as other folks, and if we don't, it's going to put us down a path of further have's and have not's."

A major obstacle to high-speed internet access on tribal land is the lack of infrastructure."