SES Americom will serve the Navajo Nation’s public safety communi...

service to OnSat, which provides the gear and runs the Navajo Nation communications network. SES has a customer that wants to begin using the transponders in question, so if OnSat wants to continue service, it must move to a different satellite, Kisilywicz said in the letter obtained by Communications Daily. “SES Americom is willing to work towards such a final temporary transition arrangement with OnSat provided it can be completed on a reasonable commercial terms, with guaranteed payments, by noon on August 11,” he wrote. According to SES, OnSat on its own turned off service to Navajo Nation libraries and chapter houses in April. OnSat said SES told it to turn off the chapter houses and libraries. Shutting off service was “a quid pro quo for keeping the safety network up,” the OnSat spokesman said. The timing of SES’s notice to OnSat that it would turn off the transponders for non-payment also is disputed. OnSat’s contract expired June 30. SES claims notification was made in April. OnSat heard no threat of shut off of services until July 8 -- “up until that point, it was discussing continuing the service on a month to month basis,” the spokesman said. To protect its Navajo customers, OnSat, as a responsible integrator, could have addressed an impending cut-off of transponder service by supplying Navajo officials with mobile satellite phones, SES said. “This is unrealistic, both technically and economically,” an OnSat spokesman said. The dispute is part of a larger argument involving the Universal Service Administrative Co., which has withheld payments to OnSat and the Navajo Nation on grounds of suspected universal-service rule violations. Non-USAC funds paid for the Navajo public safety agency network, but the satellite transponder service for the entire Navajo Nation network was to covered by E-rate funds, officials have said.