Many U.S. Tribal Nations Still Lack Access to Adequate Fixed and Mobile Connectivity

U.S. Tribal Nations experience some of the biggest gaps when it comes to access to fast and reliable fixed and mobile connectivity. While progress has been made in some Tribal Nations, the connectivity gap for many remains quite large. According to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2024 data, approximately 23 percent of residents of Tribal Nations lack access to high-speed internet service, defined as 100 Mbps download speed and 20 Mbps upload speed. Using Ookla Speedtest data, we analyzed the fixed and mobile broadband performance of 110 Tribal Nations in the U.S. from Q1 2021 to Q1 2025 and compared them with the connectivity speeds of the states that share geography with them. The results are quite surprising. Of the 110 Tribal Nations we analyzed, 74.5 percent had median download speeds below the median download speeds of the states where they share geographies. However, there were 19 Tribal Nations that had median download speeds greater than 300 Mbps and 18 of those communities have median download speeds faster than the state where they share geographies.