Video excerpt of stories about technology and culture.
Southwest fiction author, Tony Hillerman, (1988) captured the nuances of telephone service and quality on the Navajo reservation in Thief in Time:
"Until recently telephone calls between the world outside and Chaco had traveled via Navajo Communications Company telephone line. From Crownpoint northeast, the wire wandered across the rolling grassland, attached mostly to fence posts and relying on its own poles only when no fence was available going in the right direction. This system made telephone service subject to the same hazards as the ranch fence on which it piggybacked. Drifts of tumbleweeds, winter blizzards, dry rot, errant cattle, broke down both fences and communications. When operating, voices sometimes tended to fade in and out with the wind velocity. But recently this system had been modernized. Calls were now routed two hundred miles east to Santa Fe, then beamed to a satellite and rebroadcast to a receiving dish at Chaco. The space age system, like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration which made it possible, was frequently out of operation. When it worked at all, voices tended to fade in and out with the wind velocity. Today was no exception."
(p. 99)
Although Navajo Communications Company (NCC) telephone service and quality have improved over time, in 1999 telephone service on the Navajo Nation remains lacking in some areas. There are still chapter houses and communities without any phone service and telephone lines. On the Navajo Nation, although charged as a telephone service, response time to emergency 911 calls is slow because messages are intercepted by several other parties before reaching its intended destination. For example, 911 calls are received first by county sheriffs and then transferred by U.S. West to Crownpoint Police Department (Jean Whitehorse, May 9, 1999). Jean Whitehorse addresses the existing digital divide:
"The Navajo people are at the crossroads living in two worlds: traditional and modern. But should our people suffer and be penalized and live with hardships and inadequate services? Should our people be treated any less humanely because of the life-style they choose to live in remote areas on their land? NCC's only concern is the profit margin. How much value should be put on a life? Yes! It's difficult in dealing with modern technology in the remote areas when funds are not available. What we need now is a means of working together and progress to better the life of our people with other alternatives. As an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, I'm addressing these issues and concerns on behalf of the people who deal with inadequate services with the communication system in general. The Dine' people have encountered oppression, dealt with it and survived, and now we are dealing with bondage, with budget cuts at the grass roots level due to lack of funding.
Now where do we stand as a Sovereign Nation, and how are we exercising our self-determination act?"
(Jean Whitehorse, Digital Council Fires, May 15, 1999)