Native American Wireless ISP Launched

babynerd writes "On Tuesday June 1st the Coeur dAlene tribe unveiled the Turbocharged Broadband Geek Project. The scheme, organized by project head Valerie Fast Horse and funded by a $2.8 million dollar grant from the USDA Rural Utilities Service and a 15% in kind match from the tribe itself, will help build a community technology center (CTC) with 40 computers, and a wireless broadband ISP that will provide high-speed wireless access to anyone living on and near the reservation at a price comparable to that of any other DSL or Cable Internet providers - there's currently no broadband Internet access of any kind available."

Smoke Signals

[Greenisus]

...very slow bandwidth . . . .

"organized by project head Valerie Fast Horse"

[Anonymous Coward]

Valerie Slow Horse prefers a floppy disk for data transfer...

Netcraft confirms it....

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad they ain't running [netcraft.com] Apache... maybe they've had bad experiences in the past?

About time.

[Blue Eagle 26]

The old smoke signals had terrible throughput!

Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now homeowners associations can keep Indians from putting antenae on thier tee pees

This is really wierd!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm starting to think my history teacher is psychic. Today, we watched Smoke Signals in class and now there is this in the news. Last week, we finished talking about Ronald Reagan, now he died. A while back, we talked about Elia Kazan in the 50's, within a week, he died. Wierd...

I should get him to talk about Bill Gates...

Re:About time.

[acariquara]

Yeah, but that was not because of link reliability as much of extra bits that were unneeded. The ancient PoS (Packet-over-Smoke) protocol was *really* a POS.

When SSNeP [getrealistic.com] was introduced the overall performance reached full potential.

Re:No such thing as a "Native American"

[brulman]

actually several of us were born here.

Re:Smoke Signals

[owlstead]

Yes, but if you tend your fire carefully you can achieve an always on connection. During daytime, that is...

second time's the charm

[sacrilicious]

the Turbocharged Broadband Geek Project. The scheme, organized by project head Valerie Fast Horse

A previous attempt by a different group of native Americans failed to crystallize into an actual broadband offering. That group's spokesman, Eddie Slow Turtle, had no explanation.

The Land of Idaho

[Z4rd0Z]

Idaho...where men are men and the women, well they kind of look like men too.

Re:Turbocharged?

[GPLDAN]

Turbo Pascal, product by Borland.

The word "Turbo" has become part of the lexicon for describing anything fast. I don't think anyone really understands that the product is not using it's own exhaust gases to boost internal horsepower. Imagine if Slashdot did that, it would FLY. God knows there is so much exhaust gas around here.

Old news. . . .

[Rogue Leader]

Native Americans have had wireless communication for centuries. Smoke signals, anyone? No offense to my red brothers, we smokem peace pipe.

Re:what are those mini-Vegas' for?

[TheAngryArmadillo]

Crap, now I hate myself for having both THEY and WE ancestry. I think I'll go outside and kick my own ass then give my land back to myself.

Re:what are those mini-Vegas' for?

[ePhil_One]

Once you give it back to yourself, don't forget to start your Casino!

Re:what are those mini-Vegas' for?

[Merovign]

I vote we take everybody who wants to frame all their relations with other people based on what happened before they were born, and everyone who wants to punish someone else for something their ancestor did, and everyone who wants reparations for events which involve no one who is alive today, and we put them all in a BIIIIG room.

And we give each one of them a grenade.

And we close the door.

And pour concrete over it.

How's that for a solution to the twin problems of overpopulation and regional/racial hatred?