16 Jun Motorola Canopy Wires Indian Reservations
SCHAUMBURG, Ill.– Though electricity and telephones don’t even exist at many of their residences, tribal communities and colleges are the next highly underserved segment to be wired by Motorola Canopy, the wireless unit announced on Monday. Motorola says Indian reservations could be the most underserved communities in need of broadband access today.
When identifying the need for high-speed Internet access for its residents and students, tribal communities and colleges on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota couldn’t afford the expense of running fiber optics or cable in areas that spanned hundreds of square miles and often don’t even have electricity or telephones.
For this reservation and to link it to Fort Berthold in North Dakota and Fort Peck in Montana, wireless was the cost-effective way to go. Motorola Canopy spokesman Roderick Kelly says their only other choice would have been satellite, which he says would likely have been pricier.
Kelly likens the infrequence of Canopy on an Indian reservation – some of which is impoverished – to the notion of wireless systems cropping up the Robert Taylor homes in Chicago and the former Cabrini Green.
Canopy was paid for using a four-year, $6 million grant. The grant, which ends this August, earmarked about $1 million to the Canopy solution. The American Indian Higher Education Consortium selected three colleges, including Turtle Mountain Community College, for the project.
Because Canopy works through middlemen and not directly with customers, the . This article has been syndicated on the Wisconsin Technology Network courtesy of ePrairie , a user-driven business and technology news community distributed via the Web, the wireless Web and free daily e-mail newsletters. They can be found at www.eprairie.com.