Crst Telephone Authority

Crst Telephone Authority, a tribally owned telecommunications provider and subsidiary of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe based in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, operates as a prime recipient of federal contracts and grants serving tribal and federal agency customers across the Interior Department and other civilian agencies, with no subcontractor footprint.

The vendor is a federally recognized Indian tribe and American Indian-owned firm competing under no set-aside designation on a full-and-open basis. The corporate structure lists Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Telephone Authority as a named subsidiary, though the operational distinction between parent and subsidiary entities is not material to the award record — the vendor operates as a single contracting entity. Recent awards span telephone and broadband services contracts and distance-learning and telemedicine infrastructure grants.

Crst Telephone Authority's customer concentration is heavily weighted to the Department of the Interior. The top five funding sources account for 33% of recent awards (146 total), led by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Great Plains Region (25 awards, $453 thousand combined potential value), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (14 awards with dollar values not disclosed in the source), and the Bureau of Indian Education (5 awards, $228 thousand combined potential value). The potential-value ranking mirrors the award-count ranking — the Interior Department entities dominate both volume and dollars. Recent contract work includes a $30,873 purchase order from the Bureau of Indian Education for telephone and fax service awarded September 4, 2026 (completion September 3, 2027), and a prior $22,800 purchase order from the BIA Great Plains Region for telephone services to the Cheyenne River Agency dated March 15, 2024 (completion February 28, 2025). On the grant side, the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service awarded a $16.957 million Distance Learning and Telemedicine Loans and Grants (CFDA 10.855) project grant in September 2022 for broadband infrastructure and distance learning and telemedicine service expansion across the reservation (completion September 2024). The National Telecommunications and Information Administration awarded a broadband use and adoption project grant in May 2022 (completion March 31, 2025) to address broadband adoption challenges and digital inclusion on the Cheyenne River Reservation, where the vendor operates broadband service to 90% of 2.8 million acres but faces 58% subscription penetration and pricing constraints.

Award activity is episodic — two awards in 2020, two in 2021, three in 2022, one in 2024, and one in 2026 — with combined potential value across all 146 awards standing at $1.3 million against $20.8 million in obligated dollars, a ratio reflecting the long tail of small telephony and utility service contracts spanning back to 1991. One award is scheduled for completion in the next twenty-four months (potential value $31 thousand). NAICS concentration sits with wired telecommunications carriers (29 awards) and liquefied petroleum gas dealers (17 awards), with PSC concentration in liquid propellants and fuels (17 awards) and IT and telecommunications support (13 awards), signaling a diverse utility and broadband service portfolio anchored to tribal infrastructure support.