Building Indigenous Future Zones: Four Tribal Broadband Case Studies

Basic infrastructure, including internet access, is still lacking on many reservations; in fact, tribal lands have seen increases in high-speed internet access at even lower rates than rural areas. One step to better Internet infrastructure is increasing the authority of Native Nations to manage the electromagnetic spectrum over their lands, called Spectrum Sovereignty—this refers to the sovereign right of Native Nations to access and use spectrum. This report outlines case studies demonstrating the many different ways that Native Nations have built, owned, and operated their own Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and provides recommendations that lending institutions and the federal government can take to better support Native Nations’ network projects.