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."

Comments

what are those mini-Vegas' for?

[garcia]

My biggest complaint about this is that the non-natives are funding this venture through the USDA Rural Utilities Service... Why doesn't their own tribe fund this effort? I have a feeling that they making more than enough money there to foot the $2.8 million bill themselves. Isn't that what those things are on reservations for? To build better Native American communities?

Re:what are those mini-Vegas' for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh so you are claiming that they spend ALL their money on other infastructure and are non-profit thus they don't have the 2.8 million for this venture.

I can't speak for this particular reservation but the ones I have seen in WI and MN certainly are not helping build roads and taking care of their people as well as you infer that they are.

Re:what are those mini-Vegas' for?

[ksheff]

Based on the Reservations that I know of in SD, the casino revenue is dispersed to tribal members and each one does it differently. In the early 90s, one tribe was giving away $1000/month to every adult member and $250/month to every kid. But they had to live inside a particular county, and that upset those that were still members, but didn't live within the county. Building roads and schools was still a function of the state and Feds, respectively.

Maybe they will compete with white men's ISPs

[prostoalex]

I live in Spokane, 15 minute drive from CdA, and hopefully this project, if it succeeds, will bring more wireless into the area.

Right now the greater Spokane area is pretty much monopolized by Qwest's DSL (available some places) and Comcast's cable (available pretty much anywhere else). For a city with 300K plus total population it's a shame.

Real Free Community Wireless Networking

[tomwhore]

Want to see what you can get from donations and volunteer efforts?

http://www.personaltelco.net

2.8 million would be nice to have, do not get me wrong. Given what we are doing for what we have it would mean a heck of a lot of coverage.

Re:$2.8 Million?

[Cat_Byte]

I used to work for a company (which will remain nameless) that installed networks for public schools. You wouldn't BELIEVE what they charged. It was way up in the 6 digits just for the cat-5 runs. Then they would have their $15,000 router I was supposed to install with no WAN. I was supposed to "make it blink and serve DHCP or something". Needless to say I quit when I was repeatedly asked to lie for my boss about why they had a million dollars worth of hardware for a grade-school lab. My guess is someone did the same thing to this tribe after they found out how much the grant was. Inflat x% until you use up the whole amount.

With thier own ISP...

[haute_sauce]

They can enter into the on-line gambling business ! And look at the advantages: It will not go off shore to Singapore !

Re:$2.8 Million?

[ElForesto]

It wouldn't surprise me on that. Contractors have been ripping off government agencies on projects since... well... whenever. Here in the Las Vegas area, the school district has a mandatory furniture replacement policy. Regardless of wear and tear, all the furniture is ripped out every 2 years for new pieces. And yet, somehow, we are told there isn't enough money for schools...

I think a good moral to this story is to keep a watchful eye on government spending, and don't be afraid to speak up.

I just realized this had little to do with the original story, so... I wonder if they're using WiFi or WiMAX?

FCC rules

[FuryG3]

So what are the rules for indian reservations and tribes according to the FCC? Does the FCC have jurisdiction over such areas?

Abusing the status...

[GPLDAN]

There is a systems integration and networking company here in the American West. I won't name their name, since the I'm going to say some pretty strong things...

The guy who owns gets a deep discount from distrubution partners because his is a "native-american" owned business. The company wraps themselves in the iconography and their logo is an animal synonymous with the American Indian.

This guy is ONE-EIGHTH American Indian. I won't even name the tribe. Doesn't matter. This guy is fat, pale white and bald and looks about as American Indian as Tony Soprano. perfect guy to compare him to, as well. Actually, I think Tony is less corrupt.

Nevertheless, he has a huge advantage over his competition. His discount is about 3 to 4 POINTS below a company without that status. Bidding an integration and database project that includes a $100,000 worth of Sun equipment? Going against these guys? Snap $4k off the top, just throw that money away or you WILL be underbid. Looking for an education contract? Good luck.

Want to know what else you are up against? the Tax benefits to a large corporation when they give business to a "Small Business Administration-certified 8(a)" firm. Want to double up the tax breaks? Do it in a HUBzone - Historically Underutilized Business Zone. Does your company need to be in the HUBZone to qualify for the tax break? Not necessarily. Quite a few legal entanglements there, depends what state your corporation is incorporated in.

Isn't about time we closed bullshit loopholes like these? I'm a Democrat and believe that certain inequalities exist and that in certain instances, Affirmative Action and tax incentives for areas make for good business and re-level a playing field that DOES have systematic racism in it. But laws regarding Indians are just being abused. Badly. I have a friend who is actually HALF Sioux. He moved away, but I wanted to start a business with him as an equal partner. 4 points on Cisco, Sun, and a myriad of other gear is big margin in the VAR world.

Re:Abusing the status...

[Anonymous Coward]

A company I worked for once developed a little arm of the business essentially running a small datacenter under contract from the government. It employed about a dozen people to run the place, do the programming, maintain the systems. They essentially built this particular function up from scratch.

A couple of years later, the contract was reclassified as an 8a "minority business set-aside". A certain percentage of the contract money has to be spent in this category. (Yes, that's a quota, but don't tell anyone.)

As it happened, the owners of my company were "white". (Italian and Polish no longer count; that's so last century.) So naturally they couldn't bid on the contract. The owners weren't poor. They could afford to start their own company, after all. But they weren't rich, either, and had had to skip a few salary payments a couple of times to make payroll for the rest of the employees.

The winner in question -- everyone knew who it was going to be even before they reclassified the contract, as he had had several contracts swung his way before -- was a local millionaire. But he was black, and therefore qualified. It didn't matter that he charged about 10% more than my company. That's even a feature, since it helps fill up the quota with fewer contracts.

The funniest part was the the staff we had happened to hire. By chance, it happened to be fairly diverse: white, black, Indian, Asian, male, female. Far more diverse than the local population or the usual tech company, though not through any particular plan or virtue in hiring. Just happened to work out so that there was only one White European Male involved. (He was the manager, though, if that makes you feel better about the oppressive nature of the incumbent.) Naturally, they all lost their jobs when the contract was cancelled. They met the staff from the new company for the transition. The new team was all white males, with only one exception.

Just another government victory for equality and fairness brought about by legislation.

surge of DUI activity?

[Anonymous Coward]

How could it get worse?

Friends of mine grew up on a couple different reservations and they said that from payday until they ran out of money, people would line up at the liquor stores and buy as much as they could carry. If they didn't have one in their town, they would drive to one that did and pack the car with as much as they could buy. Highway 666 in New Mexico is a very dangerous road, not because of the number, but because of the sheer numbers of drunks attempting to drive while 2-3 times over the legal limit.

Re:$2.8 Million?

[tmasssey]

I was just involved with a company who built a new office for themselves. 50-so people. They built a reasonably attractive building in a city, not a reservation. I believe it was about 10,000 sq. ft. Total cost? Under $800,000.

So that leaves $2 Million. Are we agreed that you could buy 40 extremely nice PC's for under $50,000? Let's add another $50,000 for a server, switches, printers, etc. $100,000 for the setup of 40 systems? I'd do it in a *heartbeat*.

Now, bandwidth. Let's assume a frac-T3, say, 4Mbit. $50,000 for interface hardware. Maybe $50,000 for UPS's, proxy server, DNS, etc. Monthly costs of what? $6,000 a month for a 4Mbit T3? You could do it with 4 nice, redundant T1's for under $3,000 a month!

Now, wireless. Let's assume that you want to put up 100 access points. And let's say that you pay $1000 per access point. $1k is going to get you a *kick-butt* AP, wouldn't you agree? And 100 AP's? That's some pretty good coverage, right? Cost: $100,000.

OK, so let's total this up:

Building: $800,000
Techology for center: $100,000
Back-end configuration: $100,000
TEN YEARS of bandwidth @$6000/month: under $800,000
100-AP wireless network: $100,000

Total: $1.9 Million

That leaves $900,000 (!).

I know that I would do the entire job (without the building) for $2 Million. I would spend $1 Million to do it, and live off of the interest on the other Million! :)

How broad is the lake?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

What about north? Coeur d'Alene and Hayden (where I live) are both north of the lake.

As another poster already mentioned, the service is available to non tribe member residents on the res.

If they haven't already put an access point on your side of the lake, how broad is the lake? If only a few miles, you should be able to hit the access point with a directional antenna.

24 db dishes can be had online for less than a hundred bux, and two of 'em face-to-face can easily go more than ten miles, while one of 'em pointing at an ordinary accesspoint can make several miles. Similarly, a short yagi (or a "pringles can" antenna) can get you considerable distance.

So even if they don't have an AP on your side of the lake, you may be able to connect.

And IF you can connect, you can stick a second card in your box, enable routing, and become a local access point for the others who can't hit directly. (Two such volunteers can provide a solid feed without leaving the rest of your community in the lurch when you're rebooting.)

And I think some cheap routers can also be configured for this - just replace one of the rubber duckies with a directional antenna - or plug two of 'em - one with a directional antenna, one with duckies or roof-mounted omnis - into your ethernet hub or back-to-back with a crossover ethernet cable.

But since the intent WAS to feed the whole community don't be surprised if such relay access points are already part of the plan. (Or, since they're so cheap to add, if they get added once they're suggested.)