SES Wants to Serve Navajo through Transition
SES Americom seems ready to give OnSat another reprieve from a threatened Monday noon shut off, we've learned. While OnSat works to resolve the situation, possibly by moving to another provider, SES appears willing to serve OnSat until at least Aug. 15, officials said. The service would keep only public-safety networks running, the officials said.
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OnSat was serving the Navajo Nation via SES Americom transponders, an arrangement that collapsed when OnSat didn’t pay bills because the Universal Service Administrative Co. hadn’t paid it money owed for servicing the Navajo Nation’s libraries, OnSat said. The Navajo Nation applied for and was approved for E-rate money. Disbursement of the funds has lagged while USAC investigates whether the Navajo Nation adheres to its rules.
SES provides transponder service to OnSat, which provides the gear and runs the Navajo Nation communications network. Non-USAC funds paid for the Navajo safety agency network, but the satellite transponder service for the entire Navajo Nation network was to be covered by E-rate funds, officials have said. SES’s contract with OnSat expired June 30. SES extended service twice after the FCC intervened, but SES told the commission it was shutting off service as of noon Monday.
FCC staff intervened the first time at the request of Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. The senators wrote to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin urging him to intervene and to ask USAC to give a detailed report on the situation. It’s unclear whether Martin ever asked USAC to prepare the report. An FCC spokesman declined to comment on congressional correspondence. “USAC has been reporting as appropriate to the FCC on all developments regarding the Navajo Nation throughout the process,” a USAC spokesman said.
The situation got trickier last month when the Navajo Nation’s attorney general asked USAC and the FCC to take no action until completion of an internal inquiry into Navajo Nation E-Rate participation. The attorney general’s request seems to be part of a larger dispute over tribal governance. It reached USAC the day Navajo President Joseph Shirley began campaigning for USAC to release the funds. A spokesman for the Navajo Nation declined comment. Once the Navajo report is complete, all parties will review their findings and discuss what to do, a USAC spokesman said.
Tribal review isn’t the only scrutiny accorded the Navajo Nation/OnSat application for E-rate funds. USAC commissioned an audit by KPMG for funding year 2003. Audit results seem to show all to be in order. But “subsequent information coming to light in the summer of 2007 and thereafter” led USAC “to perform additional administrative reviews and actions to ensure that any further disbursements to the Navajo Nation would conform with all program requirements,” the USAC spokesman said.
USAC approved payment to the Navajo Nation through OnSat, but all commitments are subject to continued review, said a form letter obtained by Communications Daily. “Applicants who have received funding commitments continue to be subject to audits and other reviews that USAC and/or the FCC may undertake periodically to assure that funds that have been committed are being used in accordance with all such requirements,” the letter said. “The [Schools and Libraries Division] may be required to reduce or cancel funding commitments that were not issued in accordance with such requirements, whether due to action or inaction.”