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October 3, 2011 Phoenix, Arizona
This important hearing comes at a time when our nation’s media system is undergoing a significant transition. Arizona is often in the national news for political issues, but rarely does public debate center around the need to preserve public access to something that is owned by all of us– the air.
And by air, of course, we mean publicly-owned airwaves.
In Arizona and across Indian Country, tribal communities are facing steep challenges. Media in the United States may have a digital future, but Native Americans lack access to even the most basic digital communication technologies; even traditional native owned radio stations struggle to get on the air. Less than 10% of the people who live in Indian Country have subscribed to high-speed Internet access, and ordinary telephone service reaches only one in three families in many tribal communities. The end of the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (“PTFP”) within the Department of Commerce has left native community radio stations - from the Voice of the White Mountain Apache Nation KNNB FM 88.1 in White River, Arizona to The Voice of the Turtle Mountains KEYA FM 88.5, a Chippewa station in Bellcourt, North Dakota - struggling for funds.
In many cases, these radio stations are the sole broadcasting lifeline for Tribal communities. The rest of the broadcasting dial - both television and radio - is often unused.
Putting unused frequencies to use on an unlicensed basis could make a huge difference for tribal areas. Those who have permits to build new FM stations need more time to replace the funds once provided by PTFP. Those interested in various forms of wireless Internet services need unlicensed access to new spectrum. That means opening up the unused spectrum between television stations, known as TV White Space, so that it can be accessed by all kinds of wireless high-speed Internet access equipment, providing much-needed communications capacity - "super WiFi" - in areas that are hard to reach in other ways.
The FCC has been steadily moving down this path since 2008, and last year approved Wi-Fi like devices to access unused TV channels on an unlicensed basis. Under the rules, users and communities won’t have to pay AT&T, Verizon or the government for permission to use spectrum. Instead, they'll just check to make sure that they're not interfering with existing uses using the publicly-owned airwaves efficiently.
Super WiFi could go a long way to solving the connectivity gap on reservations and in unserved remote and rural areas across the country. The Yurok Tribe of Northern California is already testing this technology. But whether this innovative technology will be available to all tribal communities is currently up for grabs. As federal budget deficits dominate current policy discussions, Congress will be tempted to look for every last bit of spectrum to sell to the highest bidder so as to generate easy revenues for the treasury.
We urge those at the hearing as well as Congress not to sacrifice long term benefits for innovation in communications and media in favor of a short-term budgetary boost. The Tribes need super WiFi, and so do the rest of us.
Authors
Loris Taylor is the President and CEO of Native Public Media and a member of the FCC’s Diversity Committee.
Susan Crawford is a professor at Cardozo Law School in New York City and a columnist for Bloomberg View. She served as Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (2009). |
SAN BERNARDINO - The country's first Native American television network went on the air this week, fulfilling a dream the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and San Bernardino-based KVCR television have been working toward for years.
KIYE_-OnAir_News_Release.pdf