SES Agrees to Continue Serving Navajo Nation Until August
SES Americom agreed to continue serving the Navajo Nation until Aug. 1, an SES spokesman told us Tuesday. SES had planned to cut off service to the Navajo Nation on Tuesday (CD July 22 p14), but was persuaded by the FCC to continue serving the tribe, the spokesman said. “The FCC suggested we could be flexible once again,” he said, noting that SES extended service past the end of its contract with OnSat.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
SES provides transponder service to OnSat, which provides the equipment and runs the Navajo Nation’s communications network. SES’ contract with OnSat expired June 30 and the satellite company told OnSat in April the contract couldn’t be renewed while there were outstanding payments, the SES spokesman said. “Our customer is OnSat, it is not the Navajo Nation. We don’t owe the Navajo Nation anything and they don’t owe us anything,” he said. SES wasn’t aware that the Navajo Nation was using its transponder for emergency communications until it was contacted by the FCC, he said.
The OnSat network is used for everything from libraries to public-safety communications. “While the Navajo Nation pays for other services, over 75 percent of the cost of the SES transponder is for the Libraries. Therefore, without payment from USAC [U.S. Administrative Corp.] that has already been approved, SES no longer wants to provide any kind of service to the Navajo Nation,” Navajo Nation Joe Shirley told Mel Blackwell, USAC vice president of the schools and libraries division, in a July 15 letter. It was obtained by Communications Daily.
USAC is concerned that universal-service rules established by the FCC have been broken. “All applicants must abide by these rules to receive the funding they apply for,” an USAC spokesman told us.
The controversy began more than a year ago when a local newspaper near the Navajo Nation wrote a story claiming that OnSat was double billing for its network services, a Navajo Nation spokesman said. A Navajo Nation special review found this to be “erroneous,” the spokesman said. While OnSat generally declined comment on the situation, a spokesman did say the over billing issue “is a red herring, there was no over billing, period, and the USAC is well aware of this.”
USAC hasn’t been convinced and continues to ask for more information from the Navajo Nation, without specifying exactly what it is looking for, the Navajo Nation said in a written statement. “USAC has failed to make the funds available for more than 14 months and has failed to provide any reason for withholding them, despite numerous urgent requests for an explanation,” the Navajo Nation said.
USAC continues to seek information to ensure the universal-service program isn’t being abused, its spokesman said. “It can take time to get all the relevant information about all these areas of program behavior, but USAC is committed to preventing fraud and abuse of the USF [Universal Service Fund], and we need to be sure that applicants understand and are acting within program rules,” he said. USAC has paid OnSat more than $1.9 million out of a requested $5.4 million, according to USAC.