[1st-mile-nm] GAO Report: BROADBAND ON TRIBAL LANDS

[Richard Lowenberg]

 From the Benton Fdn. list:

BROADBAND ON TRIBAL LANDS

[SOURCE: Government Accountability Office, AUTHOR: Mark Goldstein]

http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/674906.pdf

Although all 21 tribes the Government Accountability Office interviewed 
have some access to high-speed Internet, tribes and providers GAO 
interviewed cited barriers to increasing access. The Federal 
Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund subsidy programs and 
the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Rural Utilities Service grant 
programs are interrelated in that they seek to increase high-speed 
Internet access in underserved areas, including tribal lands. GAO's 
previous work on overlap, duplication, and fragmentation has shown that 
interagency coordination on interrelated programs can help ensure 
efficient use of resources and effective programs. However, FCC and USDA 
do not coordinate to develop joint outreach and training.
This could result in an inefficient use of federal resources and missed 
opportunities for resource leveraging between FCC and USDA. FCC has 
placed special emphasis on improving Internet access on tribal lands 
following the issuance of the National Broadband Plan, which called for 
greater efforts to make broadband available on tribal lands. However, 
FCC has not developed performance goals and measures for improving 
high-speed Internet availability to households on tribal lands. Without 
these goals and measures FCC cannot assess the impact of its efforts. 
The National Broadband Map includes data on Internet availability on 
tribal lands that could allow FCC to establish baseline measures for 
Internet availability on tribal lands. Further, FCC also lacks 
performance goals and measures for tribal institutions—such as schools 
and libraries. Specifically, FCC's E-rate program provides funds to 
ensure that schools and libraries have affordable access to modern 
broadband technologies, but FCC has not set any performance goals for 
the program's impact on tribal institutions. Nor has FCC defined 
“tribal” on the E-rate application. Without such information, it will be 
difficult to accurately track progress in making broadband available in 
tribal institutions. GAO recommends that FCC (1) develop joint training 
and outreach with USDA; (2) develop performance goals and measures for 
tribal areas for improving broadband availability to households; (3) 
develop performance goals and measures for improving broadband 
availability to tribal schools and libraries; and (4) improve the 
reliability of FCC data related to institutions that receive E-rate 
funding by defining “tribal” on the program application. FCC agreed with 
the recommendations.


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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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