The Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized Tribe in the U.S. About 175,000 of the nearly 400,000 enrolled members live on 27,000 square miles of Diné Bikéyah (people’s sacred lands). It’s been clearly documented how this area has been historically unserved, underserved, and disadvantaged in many ways. As far back as 1999, when President Bill Clinton set out to close the ‘digital divide’. He made the Navajo Nation one of his stops on his tour to raise the awareness of the disparity that exists between technology services extended to homes on and off the Navajo Nation.

In 2010, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, an enterprise of the Navajo Nation was awarded an ARRA stimulus grant to improve services for tribal members. The emphasis at that time was to utilize the tribal utility to build network infrastructure and pave the way for Broadband expansion. At that time, the FCC wrote a 99-page report saying “While many efforts to address the digital divide in Indian Country are in major motion, there is much more still to be done, new initiatives to undertake and future milestones to achieve”. The report also states “Communications technologies and modern media platforms, such as broadband, hold the potential to level many of the negative impacts that history has visited on tribal nations.”

Enter COVID-19. Once again, the lack of broadband Internet came under the microscope when all Navajo students were required to learn online. With less than 25% of households with Internet, students and schools had to make do with Wi-Fi hotspots made available (usually outdoors) at businesses and schools, overtaxed cell service and limited mobile hotspot devices.  Today, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are still being felt on all fronts – Navajo business, healthcare, education, and home entertainment. The difference is that now, funding is being focused on Tribal Nations, which means the Navajo Nation has an unprecedented opportunity to open the door to greater broadband competition, consumer choice, and quality to deliver the technology services its people deserve.

And that is where ‘Our Story’ begins…