For Immediate Release: August 05, 2024
Media Contact: Sean Gonsalves
Report illustrates how the FCC’s approach “sets the stage for conflict” while examining the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund’s impact on the government’s broadband infrastructure funding plans.
[MINNEAPOLIS] — A new report published today by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) reveals how the sovereignty of Tribal Nations and their efforts to solve connectivity challenges on Tribal lands can be undermined by the poor design and maze of bureaucracy associated with some federal broadband programs.
The report, Native Nations and Federal Telecom Policy Failures: Lessons from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, begins with a startling example of how one Tribe learned about a major fiber Internet provider’s plans to serve “a handful of locations in the heart of the Tribal Reservation” with funds awarded under the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).
After years of being left behind by the private broadband marketplace and the federal government, the community decided to build its own network to serve itself. However, in the midst of their effort, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction awarded an outside, private ISP funds for a scattering of connections on Tribal lands. Poor planning and engagement became compounded when, four years later, the private ISP showed up unannounced at the Tribe’s doorstep, declaring its intent to build and using its FCC award to warn the Tribe off of seeking any state or federal funding of their own.
Authored by Dr. Jessica Auer, Tribal broadband policy analyst with ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative, the report illuminates the blindspots of RDOF, which was designed to help bring high-speed Internet service to rural communities that lacked access.
“A non-Tribal telecommunications company had received federal funding to build broadband infrastructure on Tribal lands without consent, had appeared to shirk required federal Tribal engagement requirements, had ignored the Tribe’s attempt to raise concerns about it, and now seemed to be expecting to dictate what would happen next,” Auer writes in the report.
While the report begins with a real-life example of how Tribal nations now working to build their own broadband networks can be blindsided by bureaucratic neglect and non-Tribal ISPs, it goes on to detail why the FCC’s approach to broadband funding has fostered tension between providers and Tribal ISPs, and why RDOF has earned a particularly bad reputation among many Tribes.
“Some recent federal broadband programs do actually require ISPs to secure Tribal consent prior to receiving funds,” Auer says. “But the FCC still has not adopted this approach. The problems outlined in this report reinforce the need for such a requirement.”
In addition to illustrating how the FCC’s approach “sets the stage for conflict” and is “not a recipe for productive relationships” with Tribal governments, the report also examines how RDOF impacts the rollout of the federal government’s major broadband infrastructure funding program, BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment), which is administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
While elsewhere across the country, RDOF awards make locations ineligible for BEAD funding, NTIA has made an exception for Tribal lands. Auer shows that in many states, unfortunately, the burden of proof has once again been put on Tribal shoulders. “NTIA’s decision not to recognize enforceable [RDOF] commitments without Tribal consent can be a helpful corrective for Tribes who might otherwise be eligible for BEAD funding, though it looks like it may take another big effort to make it a reality.”
In the meantime, residents in Indian Country continue to be stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide.
About the Institute for Local Self-Reliance:
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has a vision of thriving, equitable communities. We are a national research and advocacy organization that partners with allies across the country to build an American economy driven by local priorities and accountable to people and the planet. The Community Broadband Networks Initiative is a program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance that works with a diverse group of allies, partners, and local communities on policies to improve local Internet access. Through the initiative, we also research and document what communities nationwide are doing to improve access to high-quality broadband at Communitynets.org.
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