Cherokee Nation to spend more than $80 million on cell towers

The Cherokee Nation said Tuesday (Feb. 13) it will build 15 cell towers in 16 rural Cherokee communities to provide service where cell or broadband access is poor or unavailable. The Tahlequah, Okla.-based Nation will spend more than $80 million in three years on the work.

The 15 new cell towers will be spread throughout Adair, Delaware, Cherokee, and Sequoyah County communities: Belfonte, Bell/CC Camp, Brent, Brushy, Chewey, Christie, Dry Creek, Eucha, Greasy, Marble City, Oakhill/Piney, Oaks, Proctor, Tailholt, and Vian, with parts of the broadband network also crossing into Mayes County. The network also includes the Kenwood cell tower constructed by the Cherokee Nation and AT&T through a historic partnership in 2023.

“A few years ago, COVID-19 highlighted the critical connectivity needs for Cherokee communities across portions of the Cherokee Nation Reservation, particularly those where high numbers of Cherokee speakers reside. Installation of a cell tower in the Cherokee community of Kenwood in 2023 has proven to be a model for overcoming these barriers, and it is a model worthy of repeating. These 15 new towers and the growth of the first Cherokee Nation-owned broadband network are major milestones in our efforts to connect these 16 rural Cherokee communities with permanent solutions,” Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement.

Engineers from Entrust Engineering will begin field work surveys within the 16 impacted communities this month in order to determine site locations for the cell towers. During this field work, residents of these communities may experience field workers throughout the communities taking photographs or completing other components of the survey process. Each will be wearing protective vests that identify who they are and the name of their company.

The Cherokee Nation also worked with AT&T in 2023 to open the tribe’s first Connected Learning Center, located at the J.W. Sam-Gadusi building in Catoosa. The center is a dedicated space providing Internet access and educational tools to Native citizens and community members who face connectivity barriers.

In 2020, Cherokee Nation was awarded a federal broadband grant to evaluate broadband expansion within Cherokee communities, awarded through the U.S. Department of Interior’s Indian Affairs Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development. The tribe was also recently awarded nearly $400,000 from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance to hire a fulltime digital navigator to focus on digital equality efforts through the tribe’s reservation.

In addition to those federal grants, the $80 million broadband initiative is funded through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds under the tribe’s “Respond, Recover and Rebuild Plan.”