The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has started its own wireless company to serve 16,000 people on the North Dakota-South Dakota reservation.

Standing Rock Telecom is one of the few tribal telecommunications firms in Indian Country. It began in response to spotty and non-existent cell phone and landline coverage on the reservation.

"We don't have those things that a lot of people take for granted," vice chair Avis Little Eagle told The Bismarck Tribune.

The tribe will put up 17 cell towers and antennas by spring 2009.

Get the Story:
Out of wireless blackness: Tribe creates its own wireless company (The Bismarck Tribune 11/16)