Slashdot Mirror
Datacenter Gives Internet To 70 Percent of Navajo Nation
Nerval's Lobster writes "The Navajo Nation cut the ribbon August 13 on an $8 million data center that has been under debate and development since 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton expressed shock that a 13-year-old Navajo girl who just won a new laptop couldn't connect to the Internet. At the time that girl won the laptop in a school contest, the Navajo Nation--a 27,425 square-mile region that covers portions of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico--had barely any IT infrastructure. The incident helped drive debate among leaders of the Navajo Nation, many of whom said they believed adding telecommunications and computing facilities were secondary to other concerns for the chronically poverty stricken region. The 50,000-square-foot facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico includes 25,000-sq.-ft. of datacenter and an equal space for computer training and business incubation, according to Nova Corp., an IT services company owned by Navajo Nation and formed in 2004 to execute an IT plan to create the "Digital Navajo Nation" (PDF). The drive to get it built also helped push development of a $46 million broadband project designed to cover about half of Navajo territory with 550 miles of fiber, 32 new cell towers and upgrades to another 27. It will eventually connect more than 30,000 households and 1,000 businesses."
Soon the Navajo will have better internet than the rest of the West!
I was going to say let's hope this gift doesn't come with viruses like those lousy blankets, way back when, but we know it will.
To bring broadband to every high school in the country, especially rural ones. Sort of like the 1930s rural electrification initiative. Neighboring communities and business could jpiggy back on the school broadband. I do not know how well this succeeded in the past four years.
While the title isn't really misleading, I had to read it three times to realize this wasn't some grand upheaval of those "give the internet controls to the UN" debates that show up now and then.
On the other hand, I wonder what the internet would be like if all the control agencies were run by Navajo.
Every liquor store in the region just set up a website.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
How about they put that casino loophole to good use and pay for their own goddamned infractructure.
And no, before anybody starts, they weren't 'always here'.
See for yourself:
"White people cut the ribbon August 13 on an $8 million data center that has been under debate and development since 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton expressed shock that a 13-year-old white girl who just won a new laptop couldn't connect to the Internet. At the time that girl won the laptop in a school contest, the white community--a 27,425 square-mile region that covers portions of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico--had barely any IT infrastructure. The incident helped drive debate among leaders of the whites, many of whom said they believed adding telecommunications and computing facilities were secondary to other concerns for the chronically poverty stricken region. The 50,000-square-foot facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico includes 25,000-sq.-ft. of datacenter and an equal space for computer training and business incubation, according to Nova Corp., an IT services company owned by white people and formed in 2004 to execute an IT plan to create the "Digital White Nation" (PDF). The drive to get it built also helped push development of a $46 million broadband project designed to cover about half of white territory with 550 miles of fiber, 32 new cell towers and upgrades to another 27. It will eventually connect more than 30,000 households and 1,000 businesses."
My understanding is that the Navajo Nation is as much a valid political entity as, say, the State of Wisconsin. Navajo Nation is almost but not completely unlike one of the 50 states in our Federal system. So if you Find and Replace "Wisconsin" into the parent post, it doesn't seem at all racist.
Ah, Slashdot... where if you can't say something on-topic, you can always say something racist.
also cell based is really that good for fixed base users aka fixed homes / offices. Also fast will it be when all users on one tower all hit YouTube at the same time?
and now the NSA won't be able to read their email ...
While there is always debate about whether something like this is the best way to spend money in a poverty stricken area, one way it could help is if "rural sourcing" got started in the Navajo nation. That could include things like software development and call center work. No, it's not for everybody, but when a few people start making better money in a poverty stricken area it sometimes has a positive feed back effect. The newly employed hire someone else to work on their house or their truck, buy other local services, that sort of thing.
P.S. Now for a couple of things that you know people are dying to say (or groan about).
1. Finally, software written by real Indians.
2. In the future I want real Apaches working on the Apache server (hey, at least the Navajos are a related people).
I got a on line survey from Potawatomi Bingo Casino about on line gameing it say that at this time they can't have a on line casino.
It's great they want to connect the Navajo Nation, but the real problem is that you have many homes there that don't have running water or electricity, no less a computer. I just moved away from the area and knowing the Navajo government, this is just a project to generate more money for the government that will not go to the people. This data center will be leased out and none of the money will go to the people, or projects for the people.
Go do a job search on their site, specifically for IT jobs.
Ft. Meade, MD.
The Navajo are being led down the primrose path.
What they really need to do is fix the tribal courts. Currently, if you do business there and get into a dispute with the tribal government, you are screwed. There is no guarantee they won't throw sovereign immunity in your face and tell you to go fuck yourself. There's a reason one of the first things the US Congress ever did was waive sovereign immunity for torts and contracts. It lets you do business with the government with the assurance that they can't just take their ball and go home...you at least get your day in court.
Yeah, Native Americans got shafted for a very, very long time, but now, they are just perpetuating their own problems. ISPs won't do business on the reservations because they have zero guarantee of anything. Garbage truck backs into a utility pole? Good luck recovering damages.
That 13 year old girl doubled her lifetime waiting for the net, and her laptop may be a little bit obsolete by now - they should give her an upgrade for starting all this :)
Are we supposed to applaud this? It sounds like a boondoggle.
I read the article, and read the PDF produced by the Navajo 'IT' group. They spent the past 13 years soliciting funds from the state and federal level. This is also another E-Rate disaster ( FCC based 'broadband' initiative that also 'successfully' hooked up 9 schools in Puerto Rico for 150 million ).
Obama wants to not increase cell phone taxes to give E-Rate even more funding.....
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I don't see the purpose of a data center, typically its desirable to have these near backbones where they can provide fast access as opposed to the backend of nowhere? It would be far more prudent to try and get people using AWS, AppEngine, etc. as opposed to sinking millions into an unnecessary building and equipment however much Cisco & other hardware vendors would like sell them.
A rhetorical question that was, Yoda?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
With low population density (i.e. user base) over a large region, its far more cost effective to run a few high bandwidth lines and provide wireless service. Cellular network bandwidth isn't that bad, e.g. people use their mobiles as hotspots - in city areas, which have a far higher density of wireless signals (leading to more interference, and also less available per person).
Monument Valley will now have sell towers along with the sandstone pillars.
Progress.
Strange. It seems like it's trying to communicate. What are you trying to say?
Seems like a lot to me. I tend to think that (1) it could have been done a lot cheaper (wireless?) and (2) if in fact it had to cost that much, then the money probably could have been spent better.
I'm thinking, "Why does one Datacenter have the power to give away control of the entire Internet, why on earth did they pick Navajo to give it to, and what did that unlucky 30% do to get left out of this sweet deal?"
Its a old newspaper trick (perfected IMHO by The Register), to use purposely confusing titles to induce the reader to read at least a bit of the article to figure out what's going on. In this case, two sentences in all was made clear, but by then I was reading. Bravo, Editors!
TCP/IP over smoke signals.
Have gnu, will travel.
Just wanted to post some fact check data here. I live 10 miles from the data center, was interviewed for a position there (turned down the consequent job offer) and am friends with the data center administrator. First of all, the article is incorrect - the data center is in Shiprock New Mexico on the Navajo Nation, NOT in Albuquerque. This is a 240+ mile difference. It's a common occurance that news articles written by people outside the area tend to make. Everyone not from New Mexico thinks that Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos are the only places in New Mexico. Also, the data center was not built with grant funds. The grant funds went towards the fiber optic project. NTUA, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, invested their own capital to build the data center. In fact, what the ariticle does not make clear is that NTUA houses and manages the data center. What makes this unusual is that NTUA is the utility for the Navajo Nation (water, sewer, electricity, etc.). Building and running a data center is a little out of their core compentencies. Having said that, however, they've done an impressive job. The data center is state of the art and well built. They have power feeds from two different bulk electric utilities, two massive backup generators, two buildings of UPSs, and a state-of-the art NOC. What they don't have, in my humble opinion, is a completely fleshed out marketing team. But then I don't know exactly what their marketing strategy is anyway. As far as being racist goes, the only comment I've seen so far which I would say is blatantly racist is the one about "every liquor store in the region" putting up a website. That's kind of harsh, and is a really bad sterotype. Again, however, that's just my opinion. This is a free country after all.
They didn't have any casino's on the Navajo Nation until about two years ago. It was probably the one that held off the longest on building them, partially because they could never come to an agreement with the State of New Mexico, but mostly due to tribal opposition.
The bigger thing is that it will benefit those that have power... What many people don't realize though is that much of the reservation is like a third world country without running water or electricity!
Last time I was out there, they told me that, in order to simply be allowed to name one of their schools in their own language and have it retain its accreditation, they had to allow a dozen antenna towers be built on top of a sacred mountain on their own land. They don't get anything from the BIA for free and I'd be very surprised if this didn't come with many strings attached as well.
...must reach everywhere. Or how I saw in a program a few days ago: Big Vatican. I am beginning to think it is true that God makes miracles, the Church manage them and the Vatican puts the expiring date on them.
What about using some of the casino money?
If the Diné really had nation status, they'd get a top level domain like all the other "legitimate" nation-states.