Â鶹ŮÓÅ

FORT HALL RESERVATION, Idaho — Standing atop Ferry Butte, Frances Goli scanned the more than half a million acres of Shoshone-Bannock tribal land below as she dug her hands into the pockets of a pink pullover.

The April wind was chilly at one of the tribes’ highest vistas in remote southeastern Idaho.

“Our goal is to bring fiber out here,” Goli said, sweeping one hand across the horizon. The landscape below is scattered with homes, bordered in the east by snowcapped mountain peaks and to the west by “The Bottoms,” where tribal bison graze along the Snake River.

In between, on any given day, a cancer patient drives to the reservation’s casino to call doctors. A young mother asks one child not to play video games so another can do homework. Tribal field nurses update charts in paper notebooks at patients’ homes, then drive back to the clinic to pull up records, send orders, or check prescriptions.

Three years ago, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes were awarded more than $22 million during the first round of the federal Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. But tribes that were awarded millions in a second round of funding saw their payments held up under the Trump administration. Last month, federal leaders to tribal broadband programs as part of a larger effort to “reduce red tape.” The National Telecommunications and Information Administration said it plans to “promote flexibility” and launch a new grant in the spring.

Federal regulators declined to provide details. The announcement comes after a year of upheaval for federal broadband programs, including the elimination of Digital Equity Act funding, which President Donald Trump has called “racist,” and a restructured $42 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program, which U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said was influenced by “.”

Across Indian Country and on the Fort Hall Reservation, high-speed despite billions set aside for tribes. In early November, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) why funds already awarded had not been released to tribes and whether federal regulators were providing adequate technical assistance.

So far, the $3 billion tribal program has announced $2.24 billion in awards for 275 projects nationwide. But tribes that won awards have drawn down only about $500 million, according to a from the Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General.

The agency on the broadband programs, offering tribal leaders two dates in January for online meetings.

The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have drawn down less than 2% of their awarded funding and the program has not yet connected a single household, Goli said. NTIA spokesperson Stephen Yusko said the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes are still slated to get their full grant award and, he confirmed, future spending will not be subject to the administration’s recalibrations.

Gaps in high-speed internet can be profound and urgent on tribal lands. Tribal members are historically underserved and, on average, live with the highest rates of chronic illnesses and die than the average U.S. resident.

Diabetes and high suicide rates are among the most pernicious tribal health challenges — and federal research confirms telehealth . A Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News analysis showed that people tend to live sicker and die younger in America when they live in dead zones, or places where poor internet access intersects with shortages of health care providers, leaving patients who need it most unable to use telehealth.

“We’re in survival mode,” said Nancy Eschief Murillo, a longtime Shoshone-Bannock leader. The tribes, which have an on-site clinic, need more health care both in person and with telehealth, she said. “Right now, our reservation? We don’t have accessibility.”

‘Not 100% Accurate’

Inside a trailer that serves as the temporary headquarters for Fort Hall’s tribal broadband office, Goli sat at a desk in June and scanned the Federal Communications Commission’s most recent online map of the reservation.

As the tribes’ broadband project manager, Goli didn’t like what she saw on the map. Blue hexagons highlighted varying rates of high-speed coverage and signified that high-speed internet is available on much of the reservation. Companies have told federal regulators they provide fast transmission speeds to homes there.

“These are untrue,” Goli said. Fort Hall has about 2,400 households, and nearly all of them live without high-speed internet, she said.

When it comes to tracking who on a reservation has high-speed internet, “everybody acknowledges, including the FCC, that the map is not 100% accurate,” said Robert Griffin, co-chair of the Fiber Broadband Association Tribal Committee, an industry trade group. He is also the broadband director for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Attempting to correct the maps is one of the many tasks Goli has taken on since becoming the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ broadband project manager in January 2023 — seven months after the tribes won the award.

A series of hurdles, including flaws in the plan initially approved by the federal government and a cyberattack, have delayed the project, she said. The attack hit in August 2024 and for months shut down nearly all phones and computers on the reservation.

“We didn’t have access to any of our information,” Goli told Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News this month, adding that the tribes are still “in recovery mode” from the attack.

Goli, who grew up on the reservation and still plays basketball at the tribal gym, left her job as a data analyst in Seattle to return home to be with family and to work. For two years, and with no broadband industry experience, Goli has overseen the multimillion-dollar grant without a staff.

Her first task, she said, was to collect data that could help create a realistic plan to deliver broadband to every home on the reservation. “Data tells a story,” Goli said.

Fort Hall and many other tribal lands are remote with rugged, expansive terrain. To build fiber-optic cables underground, the tribes must navigate lava rock and work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to get permits. To build communications towers, the tribes must ensure they follow migratory bird rules for American bald eagles. To provide wireless connections, the tribes must buy or license spectrum from federal regulators, Goli said.

When the federal tribal broadband program launched, more than asked for more than $2.6 billion, even though only $980 million was available. There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States.

The tribal program funding was not enough to “build out Indian Country,” said Joe Valandra, chief executive and chairman of the broadband consulting firm Tribal Ready. Valandra is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota.

Congress created the tribal program to be used in combination with funds from the larger $42 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment, or BEAD, program, Valandra said.

But now, it seems “the administration has no appetite for expensive broadband infrastructure builds in rural areas,” said Jessica Auer, a senior researcher with the community broadband networks team at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a research and advocacy nonprofit.

Auer, who has of tribal programs is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at Â鶹ŮÓÅ—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about .