Some 1,500 residents of two Navajo Nation communities in New Mexico will be getting phone and Internet service.

Sacred Wind Communications is connecting wireless towers to the chapter houses in Nageezi and Huerfano. Land lines will be run from the chapters to individual homes.

"It was awful living without a phone," 64-year-old Mary Woody, who made her first phone call on Wednesday, told The Farmington Daily Times. "I had to ask a friend if I could use the phone, or I had to walk half a mile to the chapter house to call someone."

An estimated 70 percent of the people on the reservation lack phone service.

Get the Story:
First contact: Navajo residents get connected (The Farmington Daily Times 7/28)