I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Stimulus funds will be used to connect more than 30,000 households, businesses and institutions on the Navajo nation, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan and Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall announced today. The funding would provide 550 miles of fiber-optic cable to the Navajo Nation as well as 59 new or modified microwave towers that would cover 15,000 square miles.
In a conference call with reporters and members of the New Mexico delegation, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke said the project would directly connect 49 Chapter Houses, which serve as community centers for the Navajo population, at speeds from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps. The wireless services, at speeds between 1 and 3 Mbps, will be provided through the project’s wireless partner, Commnet Wireless.
“Many of the homes on the Navajo nation lack basic internet access, they even lack electricity,” Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said minutes after voting on a health care reform package.
Locke said the funding would result in better educational opportunities for Navajo youth and an increase in quality of health care, as hospitals throughout the Navajo Nation would be able to communicate with each other more quickly and efficiently.
“We can open up a whole new window to the outside world,” Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said of the educational opportunities.
“As we expand broadband technology, we have to make sure that our rural areas have access,” Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. said. His district covers northern New Mexico, which includes much of the Navajo Nation.
Locke thanked the Senators Bingaman and Udall and Representatives Lujan and Jim Matheson, D-Utah, for their votes on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus package. ARRA will provide $32.2 million of funding for the broadband, while the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority will pitch in $14 million in matching funds.
Former New Mexico Governor Toney Anaya, the Executive Director of the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, said, “This is only one of several multi-million grants for broadband.”
In addition, money for a public computer center in Anthony, New Mexico was announced today.
According to a statement from the Department of Commerce, the center, among 17 that will be built or expanded, is part of a $3.7 grant to “provide computer training and adult education to a low broadband adoption, high unemployment target population through a standardized English-Spanish training curriculum.”
