"If 90% of public schools in the United States lacked Internet access, there would be a national call to action. If 90% of any ethnic group in the country was not connected to the Internet, the backlash would be immense. In 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a report that estimated that 90% of Indian country lacks access to the Internet, and usage rates are as low as 5% in some areas. Would you like to know what happened?

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) did a brief news story.

We commend PBS for covering this issue; but the failure to act by policymakers, advocacy groups and technology companies to fix this problem is unsettling. This statistic is another in a long line of challenges that plague Native Americans."

Get the Story:
Tex Hall: Analog tribes in a digital economy (USA Today 11/3)