There's a huge amount of importance placed on family across the island, and a major swath of residents are employed at the StarKist tuna plant in central Pago. The culture, goals, economic expectations and world view of residents are drastically different than that of most mainlanders. As an example of how tightly knit this place is, an entire memorial (the Leone Memorial Garden) was erected to immortalize the memory of 11 people who were killed in Leone in the catastrophic 2009 tsunami.

That said, it's a progressive place. Many of its youth aren't satisfied with keeping an island mindset -- they aren't eager to reject their culture, mind you, but they're visibly hungry to learn more about the outside world. The PacRimEast cable, originally laid in 1993, was one-upped in 2009 by an ASH undersea cable that increased bandwidth from 20Mbps to 1Gbps. But in reality, consumers aren't seeing a huge improvement in what's offered. At the aforementioned source's home, they pay $75 per month for a wireless Motorola Canopy-based system that provides 256Kbps down and 256Kbps up. Thankfully, there's no usage cap on that. If it were available, they'd be able to opt for a cable service that provides 1.5Mbps down and 512Kbps up, but that costs $150 per month and has a 25GB monthly cap.

This fragile island chain is home to the most expensive internet in America, and the political issues surrounding it are astonishing.

My source aptly points out that the AS government and Bluesky Communications received a $10 million loan to redeploy the PacRimEast cable between Hawaii, American Samoa and Samoa, and it seems that it's trying to recoup those costs by charging an exceedingly small population an exceedingly large amount per month. A $10 million hit to the population of Seattle would be paid back in no time; but with fewer than 3,000 American Samoa households purchasing broadband on a monthly basis, it'll take a proverbial eternity to see repayment.

No doubt, those rates would probably make the average mainlander balk, but have a think on this: since American Samoa has a GDP per capita of roughly $8,000 and an unemployment rate near 30 percent, high-speed internet is simply out of reach for the vast majority of Samoans. Further leaning on One Economy's findings, the average measured download speed is 66Kbps (just 7 percent of the FCC's minimum standard for broadband) in American Samoa. Even looking at Guam, the US Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa has the highest calculated cost of internet in all of America -- by a long shot. To help add even more perspective to the matter, I spent a bit of extra time interviewing One Economy's Daniel Calarco. Our conversation can be seen in full below, followed by his organization's initial report on the matter.

Interviewing One Economy's Daniel Calarco

Could you explain a bit about your job, why it was created, and what your personal and professional goals are?

Calarco: "My job as director of international programs is to oversee our work outside the mainland US to help low-income people improve their lives via information technology. This includes oversight of projects in the Americas, the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, but the three projects in the Pacific are ones that I work the most on right now. These are projects that aim to create a national broadband map. The US Department of Commerce issued RFPs (requests for proposals) for each state and territory to create their portion of the map. Most states had a large state entity like a public utilities commission or a state university carry this out. Since there is no equivalent agency in the small territories, One Economy bid on and won these contracts as part of a consortium of partners.

Personally and professionally, I would like to see people around the world get access to affordable computers and internet. I think there is a lot we take for granted in America, not the least of which is our access to information. When I have a question about something like health, finance or education, I can find the answer easily online. People around the world face so many barriers, whether it is reliable electricity, access to a computer, affordable internet, or even content online in their local language (you would be amazed at how little content there is online in languages besides English and romance languages). I want to help break down these barriers so that everyone can have access to the same wealth of information we have here in the US."

Is home-based "broadband" available all across Tutuila (American Samoa's main island)? What about availability across the Manuʻa Islands (sparsely populated gems some 70 miles east of Tutuila), including Ofu-Olosega?

Calarco: "It's probably better to show you than tell you about it. We have created a public web portal that displays maps of broadband in AS here.

If you click on the coverage tab, you can see exactly where there is and isn't broadband according to the ISPs. We're working to incorporate community feedback via town halls since much of the rationale for the map is to ensure that what the providers are telling us is accurate. About 8 percent of residents of American Samoa report that they cannot subscribe to broadband because it is not available in their area."

How many companies offer home-based broadband across American Samoa?

Calarco: "Two -- Bluesky and ASTCA (American Samoa Telecommunications Company)."

Do you know if similar rural broadband initiatives exist for other outlying US territories, such as Guam and the US Virgin Islands?

Calarco: "Schools in all the territories qualify for the e-rate program for lower cost connectivity.

The federal government has sponsored several programs under the Broadband Technology Opportunity Program, of which One Economy has received funds to expand rural broadband access."

Does the government currently subsidize the cost of home-based broadband for American Samoans? Is that a consideration? What are your personal feelings either way on that?

Calarco: "Not as far as I know. ASTCA is still kind of a quasi-governmental organization even though they are technically privatized. If they are operating at a loss, then one could say that they are subsidizing internet at home, but I don't know enough about their financials. My opinion is that the reason why costs are so high have to do with what's called 'middle-mile connectivity.' The only undersea cable connecting American Samoa links American Samoa to Hawaii (called the ASH Cable). It was privately funded by Bluesky (with the AS Government also footing part of the bill) and as a result, they are trying to make back the millions they invested. However, with fewer than 10,000 households in American Samoa, the numbers just aren't there for sufficient economies of scale for a privately funded cable. In my opinion, the federal government should buy out Bluesky's share of the ASH cable and take over the cable. The cable will never make back the money invested."

Do you think tech companies like Google would invest in internet in American Samoa? Do you think private technology companies should consider such a thing?

Calarco: "I think private companies might invest in American Samoa from a corporate social responsibility angle. But as things stand, it doesn't make sense from a business point of view. With 55,000 residents and 10,000 households, it is simply too small a market."

Do you believe there's an education / marketing issue here, or is it mostly cost? In other words, do residents simply not know that broadband is available, or is it so costly that only 2,000 or 2,500 residents actually get it?

Calarco: "I don't believe this is an education issue. In our survey, we asked almost 1,700 households questions about their attitudes. About 200 said they did not subscribe because they were not interested. Most of the others that did not have broadband stated they did not subscribe because it was too expensive, it was too slow, it was not available in their area or some other reason (lack of computer, lack of electricity, etc.)."

Have you seen Bluesky's wireless / cellular HSPA+ network act as a replacement for hardline connections for some individuals? Do you think there's reason to believe that wireless will slip in and become more important than wireline given all the deployment headaches?

Calarco: "This is definitely happening. About 20 percent of subscribers use a mobile network as their primary means of connecting to the internet. This could be on a smartphone, via a dongle for PCs or via Bluesky's WiFi hotspots."

How has internet access impacted the American Samoa economy, and how do you think it will impact the islands in the future?

Calarco: "I don't believe it has had an enormous economic impact, at least in terms of employment and livelihood. The major employers remain the tuna cannery and the government, both of which would continue to exist and operate here without the internet.

Instead, I would say that the lack of high speed internet has had a profound effect on the economy. There have been several attempts to set up a call center for outsourcing. American Samoa has many advantages in terms of a literate, native English-speaking population that is seven time zones off from the East Coast of the US -- they could certainly do some business process outsourcing via call centers and it would be advantageous given their location. However, the individuals who were trying to start the call centers have cited the prohibitive cost of broadband as the single greatest barrier to them starting the business."

Is low(er) cost home-based broadband something that residents are clamoring for? Do you see real demand from the people?

Calarco: "Definitely. Over 400 of our survey respondents stated that cost is the factor keeping them from subscribing to broadband. Residents are willing to pay up to around $50 per month; however, in order to get true 'broadband' even by the lowest standards, one would probably need to spend around $200 a month."

Anything you wish I had asked?

Calarco: "I would ask: "Why is the cost so high here when other places like Hawaii, Guam, and even the Mariana Islands have much more affordable broadband options?" The answer is a bit nuanced, but if I had to boil it down, I would say it comes down to the "middle-mile" connection -- the link between American Samoa and Hawaii. Other states and territories have either larger populations or they tap into cables going between larger population centers. Guam, for example, sits on cables that go to Hawaii, California, Japan, China and Southeast Asia. As a result, Guam does not have to foot the bill for the hardware connecting them to the worldwide web -- they can free ride on the bandwidth from cables going from the US to Asia.

American Samoa's cable is a dead end. It goes from Hawaii to American Samoa, and then AS has a cable to Independent Samoa, but that's about it. It's a multi-million dollar, 2,500-mile cable that has to be paid for by a few thousand customers. Thus, there are not a lot of people to share the cost. Meanwhile, the costs for the cables that go through Guam are spread over literally hundreds of millions of households in Asia and North America. American Samoa needs to plug in to a network like the Southern Cross that connects Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii and the Western US in order to spread the fixed costs of the undersea cabling over more households.

Bringing down the middle-mile costs will likely bring down the cost to consumers. If the ISPs try to continue to charge prohibitive rates, other ISPs may enter the market to undercut them, so long as they have access to affordable middle-mile connectivity. Lower-cost internet will certainly lead to greater broadband subscriptions. People want the internet; they access it at schools, cafes, work, McDonalds -- they just can't afford it at home at the prices the ISPs charge."

This article was originally published in Distro Issue #47.