Dewayne Hendricks, The Dandin Group

To hear Dewayne Hendricks tell it, he had an epiphany. As the founder of Fremont, Calif.-based wireless Internet access provider The Dandin Group and a member of the FCC's Technological Advisory Council, Hendricks has spent years arguing that wireless spectrum should be the common property of all Americans.

On the advice of friend and telecom lawyer Henry Goldberg, in 1998 Hendricks even traveled to the South Seas island of Tonga to establish a national broadband wireless network. “Henry told me, ‘Find a country somewhere that will allow you to use spectrum any way you want. If you show that your approach will make money, then you'll make us look like cave people in comparison.’”

Then, the epiphany: Tonga is on the other side of the world, but there are 551 sovereign nations within the U.S. — Native American tribal lands, none beholden to the same laws governing the 50 states. Hendricks set out for the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Preservation in Belcourt, N.D., to install a wireless network.

The system — a series of nodes across the reservation encircled by four Western Multiplex radios, one of which taps into a T-1 line — currently meets FCC approval, but Hendricks plans to fully exploit the promise broadband wireless offers, cranking up power, frequency and transmission capabilities, and virtually guaranteeing a run-in with the feds when the network crosses the line.

“The argument we're making is that we have technology that can ensure emissions do not go across tribal boundaries,” Hendricks said. “Given that we have sovereignty, what right does the government have to tell us what to do?”

Stanford law professor and technology activist Lawrence Lessig has already volunteered his services if and when the FCC puts the smack down. But win or lose, with each step forward in the Turtle Mountain project, Hendricks draws closer to proving that wireless can deliver broadband anywhere.

Talk about epiphanies.