Felicia Fonseca

Native American Tribes Across the Country Are Pushing for Better Internet Access

The internet on the Havasupai reservation (AZ) has been a mixed bag. Tribal employees could sign on to their email and do internet searches but not much else. The tribe began working with a company called MuralNet in 2017 to get teachers and students better access. They successfully sought temporary authority from the Federal Communications Commission to use the Educational Broadband Services (EBS) spectrum that wasn’t being used. “We’re really putting our chips on EBS,” said Mariel Triggs, chief executive of MuralNet. “It works in extreme cases.