The wireless LTE network itself should deliver about 2M bps downstream and the same upstream, Keedo said. It will use radio spectrum in the 700MHz band, which Commnet has licensed. How subscribers tap into that speed will change as the nascent LTE market matures and new types of devices go on sale. The first client devices offered will be USB modems that plug into laptop or desktop PCs.

NTUA applied for the government grant under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the economic stimulus package adopted last year. It would be 70 percent of the total cost, with about 30 percent covered by money and capital from the companies building the network, Keedo said. The network will be open to other service providers, which will be able to buy capacity and sell their own services, NTUA said.

The Navajo project is the first LTE deployment in North America for ZTE, a large vendor based in China that, like Huawei Technologies, is making inroads into other markets. Though there is a "buy American" provision in ARRA, the secretary of commerce last year granted a limited waiver for certain types of broadband infrastructure. It would be so hard for ARRA applicants to know the country of origin of all the components of a broadband network that they would be discouraged from applying, the Commerce Department said when it granted the waiver.

Having a new, state-of-the-art network in the Navajo Nation may mean more than just well-connected schools, homes and government buildings, according to John Champagne, vice president of development and planning at Commnet. A large, advanced data center will be built in Fort Defiance, Arizona, where NTUA's IT operations are based. Because it could be built at an affordable price with the grant, that data center could attract outside customers including ISPs (Internet service providers) and nearby casinos, Champagne said.