Farhad Asghar, of the CollegeBoard, New York, New York, addresses a meeting of public and private sector participants with ConnectHome in Hugo last month.
Wiring the Choctaw Nation
By Charlie Clark
Choctaw Nation
Durant, Okla. - When President Obama visited the Choctaw Nation July 15, he announced the launch of a new project—the ConnectHome initiative. ConnectHome is a sequel to ConnectED, which seeks to have 99 percent of K-12 students acquire high-speed Internet in their classrooms and libraries by 2018.
ConnectHome has a similar reach of bringing high-speed, broadband Internet to residences in rural America that are not currently served. It is a commitment by the federal government with communities and the private sector. The pilot program is launching in twenty-seven cities and one tribal entity—the Choctaw Nation—and will initially reach over 275,000 low-income households—and some 200,000 children—with the ability to access the Internet at home.
The intensions are simple: Where computers had not been before, students will be able to do their homework at home, parents can search and apply for jobs, and everyone can be better informed.
Thanks to the Choctaw Nation’s positive results with the federal Promise Zone grant and other spotlight-grabbing success stories, the Choctaw Nation was selected as one of the pioneer sites for the initiative. As a result, Choctaws living in rural HUD housing will be among the first in the nation to receive this help. The Choctaw Nation’s service area of 10 ½ counties in southeastern Oklahoma fits the target description sought by the Obama administration.
A White House release states, “Since the President took office, the private and public sectors have invested over $260 billion into new broadband infrastructure, and three in four Americans now use broadband at home.”
But the gap widens considerably in low-income homes.
At the time of the President’s visit, Chief Gary Batton said, “The ConnectHome Initiative will link our homes to a world beyond southeastern Oklahoma, and tie our lives to greater opportunities.”
President Obama noted that the initiative is a step beyond the Promise Zone, of which the Choctaw Nation was one of five designated across the country. It also is, he said, to be a private-public partnership—a variety of businesses and community agencies working together.
Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, and Durant Public Schools were on board from the get-go to offer facilities and instructors to train all ages in digital literacy for free.
Speaking a few weeks after President Obama’s announcement in Durant, Sean Burrage, president of Southeastern Oklahoma State University, said, a committee has already been formed with representatives from local educational institutions, utility companies, and the Choctaw Nation. The group, Burrage said, is working to make the idea a reality.
According to Burrage, the biggest obstacle at this time is the lack of infrastructure.
These rural areas are not wired to receive the Internet. “So there is not much point in training or even handing them a laptop if they take it home and still can’t get a connection,” he said. So the cable has to be laid first.
On Oct. 22, after a Choctaw Nation ConnectHome Convening meeting in Hugo, Charlie Hembree of Vyve Broadband, a Shawnee-based company, said, “We just got through laying cable through the towns of Quinton and Red Oak. That was for another project to get to another area, so these communities just lucked out.”
Upon further questioning, Hembree explained that while the cable runs through the towns, it still does not reach individual residences.
“They will still have to come into town to use their computers at school or the library,” Hembree said, adding that he knew of no plans to wire private homes in the extreme rural areas.
“And Wi-Fi,” he said, “is pointless in these mountains and valleys. You’d have to have a tower at the top of each hill and that’s not going to happen.”
Scott Grosfield, Regional Director of Rental Property Services and ConnectHome for the Choctaw Nation, was on his way to a meeting Nov. 2 in McAlester when he called. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development office was holding a two-day workshop on Southeast Oklahoma and Promise Zone that he was to speak at, but also hoped to learn a few things.
“The Choctaw Nation Housing Authority will receive $52,700 this year for ConnectHome,” he said. The funds should be received within a few months from USDA. The application for continued funding is uncertain, he added.
These funds will be used for “service costs and router fees” to living facilities in the affordable homes program “in Wright City, Talihina, and Durant,” he said.
In addition to the trainings by SE and other educational groups, Grosfield said, “Best Buy will be furnishing instructors on how to use devices” (laptops, etc.) and “OETA has a mobile learning unit that will teach how to uses tablets and other devices.”
He had thoughts too on what’s to be overcome. “The biggest obstacle,” Grosfield said, “is obtaining the devices.”
These will have to be donated, Grosfield said.