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Native American Wireless ISP Launched
babynerd writes "On Tuesday June 1st the Coeur dAlene tribe unveiled the Turbocharged Broadband Geek Project. The scheme, organized by project head Valerie Fast Horse and funded by a $2.8 million dollar grant from the USDA Rural Utilities Service and a 15% in kind match from the tribe itself, will help build a community technology center (CTC) with 40 computers, and a wireless broadband ISP that will provide high-speed wireless access to anyone living on and near the reservation at a price comparable to that of any other DSL or Cable Internet providers - there's currently no broadband Internet access of any kind available."
If they're anything like the Indian tribes in California, they're simply spending too much money bribing politicians to have anything left for useful stuff.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Intresting the history behind this organization... It started as one of the "alphabet soup" programs under Roosevelt during the Great Depression to help provide both employment and electrify the Nation's rural farms. The program was very successful, and established rural "electric cooperatives" that allowed a number of individuals to form their own electric substation at a fraction of the price of the major electric companies. It recieved a lot of flak along with other New Deal projects because it evoked a socialist-like image, and the "red scare" was part of the period. Later, the Rural Electrification project got squished together into the a small piece of the USDA. I wonder if this is the future of the project - if so, it will play a major part at bringing the nation cheap broadband access.
I live within driving distance of about 4 reservations, 3 of which have casinos. 2 of those are less than 10 minutes from me.
By and large, those two casinos send most of their money to out-of-state banks that fronted the money to build the casinos in the first place (and those banks are connected to Vegas). That will taper down once the casinos have paid most of the debt off. Some of the money gets sent to the state in the form of "taxes" (that's right, in order to have a casino the tribes do pay the state money). The rest gets split up amongst the reservation, tribal members, and employees (not all of whom are tribe members).
In my community, the nearby casinos have paid millions of dollars (about 4 million total) to widen roads and improve the traffic situation-things which have been needed for a long time (a decade and a half) but didn't start to happen until casinos were built and the money became available. Both nearby reservations are undergoing environmental cleanup, since years of mis-management have made them polluted, dangerous places to live. Schools desperately needing rebuilding have been rebuilt.
There are a lot of things that are bad about the casinos. I personally don't like to gamble and blame the casinos for the surge in DUI activity that I've seen around here. But at least here, where I am, some of that money is being very well spent and the tribes, who were historically shown the finger by both state and local governments, are worlds removed from the state they were in just a decade ago.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
They can leave the reservation,
Many have, my ancestors included. Others are trapped by economic circumstances. Still other don't want their culture to die.
or try to organize a better economic structure for their tribes. No one's forcing them to run things that way.
Ah, another ignorant AC. Actually, the Bureau of Indian Affairs pretty much requires a planned economy for the tribes. A couple of tribes have gotten permission from the BIA to have a freer economy, and they have succeeded. But in general, the vast majority of tribes in this country are forced to have 5 year economic plans by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
The apostrophe isn't a mistake: it's "Coeur d'Alene" (it's French).
I live there, and it's really annoying when web forms try to "correct" it:
Coeur Dalene
Coeur dAlene
No.
Coeur d'Alene (I really meant it).
For the same damn reason we use tax dollors to let every Tom, Dick and Harry surf porn and do email from almost every public library in the U.S.. Fedral grants are handed out $millions at a time to put desktops in public schools or fund a new program at univeristies. Why does a tech grant to a tribe raise your ire any more than them?
Furthermore, how much do you know about tribes' "per-capita" payments, or scholorship programs? They're not simply tax money diverted from your pocket to their account. Many are the result of interest from trust-fund-like accounts, large lawsuit settlements against the gov't and income from tribe run organizations. And before anyone complains about a tribe's right to have those types of funds, realize that they are from treaties that the government signed, or lawsuits where the U.S. justice system found the government in fault.
Anonymous coward, indeed.
Since your actually funded and can, therefore, do better than fabricated pringle-can antenna's and 802.11, I recommend this. Grown-up wireless that works very well. 802.11 is an adaptation of Ethernet to microwave that does not scale. Canopy was created to do what you want to do.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
There was an article in the NYTimes about NEC defrauding the federal E-rate program a few weeks ago. That article is gone but here
is an AP wire article on the same thing. You did the right thing and its possible if you weren't working for NEC something similar will happen to other companies that are doing the same thing. In fact the NY Times article mentioned that congress going to hold hearings on this issue,
so it is something that is being looked into quite seriously.
-bloo
Riiiight. And if you pull the other one, it plays a little tune for you. Funny how they could afford $3 million for new slot machines all by themselves. Or how they can afford a $15 million hotel expansion all by themselves. Or how they could afford a $32 million casino expansion to add a sporting arena and 18-hole golf course all by themselves.
No, I think it's tolerably obvious that they can also afford to pay for their own wireless network all by themselves. I think it's also tolerably obvious where their spending priorities lie - why buy wireless for yourself when Uncle Sucker will step up to the plate? Who needs wireless when we've got empty floor space where we can squeeze in more slots?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I read a magazine article addressing the "trickling down of funds". Basically...it doesn't happen in many of them. The few who get the casinos get all the profit and the others on the reservations are living in poverty. Its sad really and I wish I had an online link to the story. I believe it was in National Geographic. I'm sure there are exceptions to this.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Everybody's 1/16 Cherokee. It does nothing for the record.
This is not about handouts or reparations. Our government signed a lot of treaties that they were legally bounded by. Our government broke those treaties, so our courts have rightly decided that our government should PAY DAMAGES for violating agreements it entered in...
It's not about you and me paying for our grandparents mistakes. It's about the US and Canadian governments paying for their mistakes. If you really don't want to continue paying for our countries past mistakes, then I can suggest a number of countries where you can emmigrate.
Lastly, ending your posts with STFU cements your juvenille tendencies. IE, It makes you look really stupid.
I am system administrator, as well as project manager for (Glenwood Telephone Company - the smallest independant telco in Georgia - www.gtconline.com) in Glenwood, Georgia (population ~~800 - average home income $16,000 a year) was awarded the Community-Oriented Connectivity Broadband Grant program by the United States Department of Agriculture / Rural Utilities Service as well. We have already successfully deployed this project to our area. The main portion of the grant funds that we were awarded 277,819 was used for the community center (www.thenetcenter.net)(10 computers [8 alienware area 51 systems and 2 Macintosh G5's, planning to add some linux pc's soon], however the remaining portion of this grant was used to deploy DSL within the city limits of Glenwood. While I can say that this helped our little company by aiding us in our broadband deployment there have been alot of other winners. The biggest winners in this so far have been the kids that now have somewhere to hang out, play games and use computers that they cannot afford to have, as well as have access to high tech equipment that the rural schools choose not to afford for them (only have 6 old computers per classroom). I must add however, another huge winner in this program was the critical care facilities (hospital, fire, police, city hall, schools within Glenwood) who get free broadband access for the first two years. Already our community center (thenetcenter.net) has a steady group of gamers coming in and they are helping us keep this project ongoing. Grants like this do indeed help out the smaller communities, and provide something other than just a local gas station to hang out in. As system administrator for Glenwood Telephone Company I can tell you that this was an excellent way to provide high speed Internet in our area. DS1's cost anywhere between $1300 a month to ~$4000 a month in our service area. What rural america can really use help in is getting backbone services cheaper to our area. Our telephone company's outside plant is among the best, if not the best in georgia (over 99% of our plant is underground and we deploy fiber constantly when doing new plant additions). Problem with deploying DSL in our area is that not many can afford it. This gets me into another problem I have that is really at the crux of the whole issue... the welfare society in america. People do not seem to realize that ISP's generally are a marginal profit business and I can guarantee you that our bandwith costs eat us alive. If we could have cheaper backbones to rural georgia we could definately see the "Rural Divide" narrow significantly. On another note even with the "subsidies" that our telco recieves with the Universal Service charge our customers would rather pay for cable TV anyday than to have a telephone or computer with internet access in their home (rural welfare society at its finest... another topic altogether). We are the atypical ISP. Many of our customers are the new computer users, average age 40+ who want to learn about computers and how they can make their lives more enjoyable. The beauty of rural america is its simplicity and access in rural america can make life simply more enjoyable. I sincerely hope that access can provide rural america the american dreams that many of them so desire. [steps off his soapbox]