Each year starting in 2017 the Internet Society hosts the Indigenous Connectivity Summit and publishes their policy recommendations (2019, 2020). These documents “outline the actions that governments of Canada and the United States can take to ensure that the Internet is for everyone.”
What they significantly acknowledged in their 2020 report is that access to broadband is a basic service much like water or electricity and point out that “in 2016, the Canadian Radio-Television Commission declared the Internet a “basic service” in Canada.” They identified six critical areas in the effort to achieve digital equity, “in no particular order of importance, all are considered equal priority”
- Effective and Accurate Mapping (of broadband access)
- Inclusivity, Community Consultation, and Engagement
- Capacity Building in Indigenous Communities
- Spectrum Rights and Sovereignty
- Infrastructure and Ownership
- Affordability