Montana Senator Jon Tester to FCC: Speed Up Your Efforts to Close Digital Divide in Indian Country During Pandemic

According to the FCC, less than half of households on Tribal lands have access to fixed broadband service, representing a nearly 27-point gap compared to non-Tribal rural areas.

Senator: “The Commission has not done enough to bridge the digital divide on Native lands, particularly during the ongoing COVID-19 national health emergency”

(U.S. Senate) – As part of his efforts to provide Native American Tribes with more tools to combat the COVID-19 crisis, U.S. Senator Jon Tester led a group of his colleagues in calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to accelerate efforts that would bring broadband connectivity into Indian Country to expand access to services like telemedicine, online education, and teleworking.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Tester and his fellow Senators demanded that the agency use its existing authority to quickly and decisively close the extreme digital divide between Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities and the rest of America while upholding federal treaty and trust responsibilities to Tribes.

“We are concerned that under your leadership the Commission has not done enough to bridge the digital divide on Native lands, particularly during the ongoing COVID-19 national health emergency,” Tester and his colleagues wrote to Chairman Pai. “Now more than ever, broadband services are vital to providing and maintaining essential community services, including ensuring members have access to telemedicine, virtual learning, and teleworking capabilities.”

The Senators continued: “The Commission has adequate statutory authority to take immediate and decisive action to provide a lifeline to Native communities that are struggling with connectivity in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We urge you to [act] on that authority immediately.”

Compared to the country-wide average, this gap is much larger as the FCC estimated in 2018 that 35 percent of Americans living on Tribal lands lacked access to broadband services, compared to 8 percent of all Americans.

Tester and his colleagues laid out the following actions that the FCC should take in order to expedite closing the digital divide in Indian Country:

• Declaration of Lack of Timely Deployment: Make a formal determination that recognizes the Tribal digital divide and commence actions to remedy that gap consistent with the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
• Lifeline: Adjust Lifeline subsidy by increasing it from $34.25 per month to $75.00 per month during the public health emergency.
• Tribal set-aside: Increase the set-aside of Universal Service Fund dollars for the benefit of Tribal communities to reach that threshold and become eligible for 5G access.
• 5 GHz Rural Tribal Priority Window: Extend the application period for the 2.5 GHz Tribal Priority Window by no less than 180 days.
• Rural Health Care Program: Expedite the processing of Rural Health Care Program applications, increase the funding for the Program, increase broadband capacity for telehealth providers, and increase subsidies for telehealth providers.
• Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs): Ensure that TCUs have broadband access, and can connect students and teachers via laptops, tablets, Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, and routers.

As the former chairman and current member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Tester has worked tirelessly to bring more resources to Indian Country in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. He recently introduced his Tribal Health Data Improvement Act to ensure Tribes are better able to access public health data, and he requested that HHS Secretary Azar and CDC Director Redfield immediately share public health data with Tribal Epidemiology Centers. He also pressed IHS Director Rear Admiral Michael Weahkee to strengthen the COVID-19 response in Indian Country as the Trump Administration continues its efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

Read Tester’s full letter to Chairman Pai HERE.