The FCC has often noted in various reports that tribal areas suffer from poor broadband. However, the FCC has been relying on the same faulty data to describe tribal lands that is used to look at rural broadband in general. The data collected from ISPs in the Form 477 process has been discredited in numerous ways, the latest being a test of the FCC data in Virginia and Missouri by USTelecom that showed that the 477 data had underestimated unserved homes by 38%. This AIPI report takes the first stab ever at understanding the real nature of broadband on tribal lands.
According to the FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report, 35% of the 1.5 million people living on tribal lands lack access to 25/3 Mbps broadband, compared to 8% for the country as a whole. The older 2016 Broadband Progress Report showed that 41% of tribal lands lacked access to 25/3 Mbps compared to 10% of the whole country. Not all tribal lands are rural, and the FCC report showed that 72% of rural tribal residents in the lower 48 states lack broadband access while 33% of urban ones lack access. It showed that 70% of rural tribal lands in Alaska lack broadband access while 15% of urban areas there lack access.
The AIPI study included a survey of numerous tribal members from around the country. Following is a small sample of the responses to the survey, which are covered in more depth in the report.
- 35% of respondents own or use a smartphone. 24% own or use a desktop or laptop computer. 16% own or use a tablet. All of these results are far lower than the US average.
- For survey respondents with access to the internet, 36% have a connection through a telco like CenturyLink, Frontier or Windstream, 29% use a cellphone, 12% buy broadband from a cable company, six percent use satellite, and 1% still use dial-up. The rest of the respondents get access to the Internet at work, from libraries or at public hotspots.
- Only 47% of respondents subscribe to a cellular plan, far below the 94% penetration for the country as a whole. 22% of respondents said that they have spotty access to home cellular coverage and 6% said they have no home cellphone coverage.
- 50% of respondents said they feel limited by the broadband choices available to them.
The report makes specific recommendations for getting better broadband to tribal lands. Some of the recommendations include:
- The FCC should earmark and prioritize some of the funding from the Universal Service Fund to solve the tribal broadband shortfalls instead of generically targeting hard-to-serve areas.
- The RUS and USDA should identify and recommend pathways for Tribes to create rural cooperatives, consortia or creative partnerships to provide affordable broadband.
- The FCC should prioritize spectrum licensing directly to Tribes or those who want to serve tribal lands.
- Tribes should be allowed to challenge Form 477 data that misstates the broadband available on tribal lands.
- Congress should provide an annual budget and provide more independence to the Office of Native Affairs and Policy at the FCC.
The report also includes numerous other recommendations for Congress, the FCC, large telcos and service providers, and tribal governments.
It’s clear that in aggregate that tribal lands are more poorly served than rural America as a whole. The report describes a broadband environment on tribal lands that lacks in both landline and cellular broadband. I’ve seen numerous papers and articles on the topic over the years, but this report goes into more depth than anything else I’ve read on the topic.