and Native Hawaiians living on Tribal lands and Hawaiian Home Lands have access to fixed broadband services, and only 69 percent of households on Tribal lands have telephone services. (22) Lack of Indian Tribes’ access to spectrum over their Tribal lands during the COVID–19 pandemic also highlighted Indian Country’s expanding digital divide, as supported by the GAO’s finding that health information technology systems at the Indian Health Service (IHS) rank as the Federal Government’s third-highest need for agency system modernization since 50 percent of IHS facilities depend on outdated circuit connections based on one or two T1 circuit lines (3 Mbps), creating slower response times than any other health facility system in the country. (23) A 2018 National Congress of American Indians and National Indian Health Board health reform comment filed with the Federal Communications Commission has further stated that 75 percent of rural Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities do not have reliable broadband networks for American Indians and Alaska Natives to access telehealth-based services, which is a critical need in the most geographically isolated areas of the United States with some of the highest poverty rates, and lack of access to reliable transportation. (24) Additionally, IHS officials reported during the COVID–19 pandemic that deficiencies within their health IT system inhibited the agency’s ability to adequately conduct coronavirus disease surveillance and record accurate data contributing to the disproportional rates of coronavirus transmissions on reservations. (25) The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) estimated from a survey of 142 out of 174 schools, that up to 95 percent of their students do not have access to residential internet services depending on Bureau school locations and data cap limitations before and during the pandemic. (26) As an additional barrier, no dedicated Federal funding streams exist for Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations to deploy telecommunications or broadband