Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Telephone Authority (CRSTTA) was the first tribally owned telephone company, founded in 1958. The tribe moved from aerial party lines to single party buried copper service by being the first tribe to borrow from the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). CRSTTA began providing internet service as Lakota Network in 1996, eventually providing DSL service within a three mile radius of their five central offices. However, as the REA evolved into the the Rural Utility Service (RUS), the tribe borrowed $37.8 million in 2009 to build a Fiber-to-the-Home network. Completed in December 2016, CRSTTA has 1,500 miles of fiber throughout the 2.8 million acres of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in Dewey and Ziebach counties of South Dakota and serves over 1300 customers.
Watch CRSTTA General Manager Mona Thompson testify before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee in 2018 on “Broadband: Opportunities and Challenges in Rural America”. Read her testimony here.