Grants totaling more than $141.5 million have been awarded from the Internet for All initiative to five tribes in Oklahoma, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has announced.
About $34 million will be awarded to the Cherokee Nation to install fiber and wireless technology to 5,899 previously unconnected households.
With funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law, the grants also will expand high-speed internet infrastructure deployment projects through the Internet for All Initiative’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program to the Chickasaw, Kaw, Sac and Fox and Seminole tribes, connecting more than 12,000 homes.
“While there are broadband service providers within the Cherokee Nation Reservation delivering quality connectivity, we still have far too many Cherokee citizens in our rural tribal communities that are being left behind and not being served,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement.
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“Historically, these are communities with a high concentration of Cherokee speakers, and as we are rebuilding our language efforts, providing service applications online and keeping our citizens more engaged electronically, these funds will be crucial to help us continue to close the digital divide.
“Now, more than 6,000 of our Cherokee households will soon be connected to their tribe, language, services and family.”
Announced Tuesday, the awards are part of 23 grants totaling more than $601.6 million to tribes. They are part of the Biden administration’s commitment to nation-to-nation engagement and an effort to connect everyone in America, including American Indians and Natives, to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet.
“We are making an historic investment in tribal communities to ensure reliable, affordable high-speed Internet for all,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement.
“These grants — made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — underscore President Biden’s commitment to closing the digital divide in the United States, especially within tribal lands. (Tuesday’s) awards will not only build high-speed Internet capacity within tribal Nations, but also bring digital opportunities for good-paying jobs, education and healthcare.”
Lewis J. Johnson is chief of the Seminole Nation.
“This NTIA grant will enable tribal members throughout the Seminole Reservation to have access and be empowered with high-speed broadband,” he said in a statement. “Ensuring equity in access benefits us all.”
The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program is a nearly $3 billion grant program and part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All Initiative. The funds are made available from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 ($980 million) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law ($2 billion).
