SAN FRANCISCO, 8:59 PM, SUN JUL 6 | 0 POSTS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS | tips@valleywag.com |

Valleywag team

Tip Your Editors:
tips@valleywag.com | AIM

Valleywag elsewhere on the Web:
Twitter | Facebook

Managing Editor:
Owen Thomas
Email | AIM

Very Special Correspondent:
Paul Boutin
Email

Associate Editors:
Nicholas Carlson (New York)
Email | AIM
Jackson West (San Francisco)
Email | AIM

Reporter:
Melissa Gira Grant
Email

Contributing Editor:
Evelyn Nussenbaum
Email | AIM

Valleywag Calendar:
Dianne de Guzman
Email

Valleywags Emeriti:
Nick Denton
Nick Douglas

Gawker Media Network

Top 10 Connected Commenters

1) josereyes.theroof wishes to perform Tim Harris's sack-dance for you
2) hortense
3) SinisterRouge
4) macpro2007
5) BAngieB
6) J.D.Regent
7) DaiMacculate
8) BettyCrocker
9) Owen Good
10) tscheese

Click on the star next to each commenter to see their Connectedness Index.

« next »

Politics, navajo nation

First they take our land, now they take our Internet

Internet access to chapter houses across the Navajo Nation has been disconnected. Access won't be restored for at least a couple weeks to the 27,000 square-mile reservation in northern Arizona. Satellite service, paid for with federal funds, is supplied by OnSat Network Communications, which claims it is owed $2.1 million for satellite time. The federal program that administers the service is withholding the money because an audit showed the company may have double-billed the tribe. In the meantime, the only option is to drive an hour to Page, Ariz. to access the Net.

2:20 PM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Jordan Golson
355 views
10 comments

Comments

donmiguel at 02:37 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*

It's weird being the Nazi of the equation -- American used to mean the opposite of bad guy.
donmiguel at 02:38 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*

Why does this comment box hate me?
Dweezil at 03:15 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*

@donmiguel: Yes, Nazism = performing your regulatory duties on a fund you administer by refusing to pay a service double-billing you.

Retard.
sample032 at 03:17 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*
Connectedness Index: 74
Brought to you by Acura TSX

You can't run 80 miles of fiber across desert for $2.1M?
yawnster at 03:25 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*

i should just run a bunch of repeaters and start charging them indians for bandwidth. now theres a business.
matto at 03:57 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*

@yawnster: If you can manage to cover 27,000 square miles with a "couple of repeaters" then I urge you to get into metro wifi immediately. You'll make a killing!
matto at 03:57 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*

@matto: disclosure: ok, you said 'a bunch'.
dalejo at 07:46 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*

my bad, they traded their internet access to me for some shiny beads.
Jordan Golson at 08:10 PM on 04/14/08
Reply by Email
*

@matto: I LOLed for real
Magister at 08:45 AM on 04/15/08
Reply by Email
*

Most of the Navajo population is concentrated in communities of various sizes and the land is very vast. If you can get it from town to town (and I've run some long distance wireless in similar terrain, it's not not really that difficult), you could easily have the "population centers" under a cloud within a year, theoretically, but the hard part would be keeping the perceived difficulty, the lack of local contractors and the idea of federal money (rules) from keeping the price from going through the roof.