wm...Mq....
'waste of money...'
posted this last night...here's the target for a chunk of the funds....
The Navajo's gave the US a code ( Their Native Language) during WWII that No one could break.......the loss of their Codes by Germany and Japan was a major piece of their downfall
Tim
Sunday April 16 10:56 PM ET
Clinton Plans Phones for Indians
By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) - To speed computer access and improve telecommunications for American Indians, President Clinton will
announce a plan Monday to provide basic telephone service for $1 a month on reservations, the White House said Sunday.
High tech companies will join Clinton's effort to spread the benefits of computers and the Internet, announcing pledges of money,
training and equipment. The commitments will include $25 million from Qualcomm, $20 million in software from Novell and $15 million
from Hewlett-Packard.
Gateway will offer technology literacy training for 75,000 teachers nationwide - including all teachers in East Palo Alto. The Waitt Family
Foundation will promise 50,000 Gateway computers for technolgy centers helping underprivileged children and America Online will offer
100,000 Internet accounts. The pledges will be announced Monday when Clinton speaks in East Palo Alto.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard, scheduled to join the president to
make the telephone service announcement in Shiprock, N.M., said he expects the plan to benefit
300,000 Indian households.
``It is disgraceful that we have a telephone system that is the envy of the world, but basic
telecommunications services are not widely enjoyed by our land's oldest people,' Kennard said in a statement.
To pay for the program, Kennard said he will propose adding $17 million to an existing program that underwrites phone service costs
for low-income people. That amounts to a 3.5 percent increase in funding for the program. Long-distance phone companies, which pay
varied subsidies to states to assist low-income people, would ultimately pay the additional costs.
Poor American Indian households already qualify for a discount, but Clinton administration officials said the cost is still too high for
many. Nearly one-third of all Indians live in poverty, compared with 13 percent of the U.S. population.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) announced Sunday it is donating more than $2.7 million in software and cash to
help bridge the ``digital divide' and economic disparity between Indian tribes and wealthier segments of society.
The company said the gift, all but $200,000 it in software, will be divided among eight tribal colleges, including Dine College in Shiprock.
Only 22 percent of Navajo Reservation households have a phone according to the 1990 census. Nationwide, the figure is an estimated
56 percent for Indian reservation households but 94 percent for the population as a whole. |
