The bottom line of the Comments of the Navajo Nation is that
lack of financial resources to implement the basic infrastructure for information technology has kept Indian Nations from advanced and enhanced telecommunications benefits.
The Navajo Nation is concerned for the vitality of services to schools, libraries and health care providers which technology will enhance.
Much of the Nation, which counts 219,000 members and covers 17.5 million acres, spanning the states of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, consists of rural and underserved areas. There is no shortage of barriers and obstacles to technological parity with non-Indian communities. These include extreme isolation, lack of potential on investment, and poor levels of subsidy on behalf of households great distances from central offices.
The Navajo Nation cannot afford to sustain the high costs of adequate connectivity. Chapter Houses, a focus of community (along with schools) are local governing centers to which people travel great distances and to which few-to-no entrepreneurial providers would be attracted. In short, competition for service provision does not and will not exist.
Distant learning technology can allow the Navajo Nation to provide courses on the Navajo language; yet, an electronic classroom at each required site carries an estimated cost of $150,000 per site. Some users of the Navajo Nation Library System now travel great distances to simply access a library. In the midst of great technological change, an abiding and overwhelming need is simply the installation of public telephones in all communities and Chapter Houses: 76 percent of Navajo homes lack telephone service.
To gain adequate access to distant learning, the benefits of telemedicine, and the resources of online libraries, the Navajo Nation requests implementation of rules that will offer just, reasonable and affordable rates comparable to those in non-Indian urban areas.