SES Americom will carry satellite integrator OnSat’s transponder service week-to-week until OnSat moves to another satellite provider, an OnSat spokesman told us Friday. SES’s contract with OnSat expired June 30. FCC interventions led SES to extend service twice. A fourth extension was to end Friday. To keep serving OnSat, SES Americom had to move it from AMC 2 to AMC 4.
SES Americom and OnSat will extend service to the Navajo Nation until Aug. 22 while OnSat shifts to another provider, OnSat said. “No service will be lost to any of the safety networks,” said OnSat CEO Dave Stephens. OnSat was serving the Navajo Nation via SES transponders, an arrangement that collapsed when OnSat didn’t pay its bills because the Universal Service Administrative Co. hadn’t paid it money owed for servicing Navajo Nation 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 told the FCC earlier this month that it definitely would end OnSat’s service because a customer wanted the capacity (CD Aug 6 p13). 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 twice extended service after the FCC intervened. A third extension was to expire Friday.
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.
SES Americom will serve the Navajo Nation’s public safety communications system only until Aug. 11 unless integrator OnSat pays the company $4 million plus interest, Robert Kisilywicz, SES Americom chief financial officer, told the FCC Monday. SES provides transponder 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.
SES Americom didn’t make good on a threat to turn off transponders serving the Navajo Nation via integrator OnSat, OnSat said. “The timely intervention of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin led SES to delay the shutdown” threatened for noon Friday, said OnSat CEO David Stephens. OnSat is working around the clock on the problem, a spokesman said. Martin sent a letter Friday urging SES to continue serving the Navajo through OnSat “without interruption.” If SES cuts service, 25 public safety entities in 13 states will lose satellite access, Martin said in a letter to Jim Ducay, SES Americom chief operating officer. SES provides transponder service to OnSat, which provides the gear and runs the Navajo Nation’s communications network. SES’s contract with OnSat expired June 30. SES had said it would shut off OnSat’s transponder July 22, relenting with an Aug. 1 deadline after FCC officials stepped in (CD July 23 p11). It’s unclear how long SES will keep serving OnSat, officials said. The dispute is part of a larger argument involving the Universal Service Administrative Corp. (USAC), which has withheld payments to OnSat and Navajo Nation due to suspected universal-service rule violations. “We are hopeful that the payment irregularities will soon end and there will be no further threats to turn off this critical service on which so many Navajo depend,” Stephens said.
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.
The Navajo Nation risks losing its communications services provided by SES Americom on Tuesday due to bureaucratic discord, it said. “It is totally unfair to the Navajo people to have these vital communications services withdrawn because of some differences of opinion in Washington over issues that they have not yet even specified,” said Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley. To fend off a shutoff, Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., wrote to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin late last week urging he order the U.S. Administrative Corp. to explain why it is holding back universal service E-rate funds from 2006. USAC told the Navajo Nation in March that it was placing a hold on $2.1 million, the senators wrote. OnSat and subcontractors shut off service to Navajo Nation Chapter Houses in April and SES Americom will cease service Tuesday, the senators said. “Satellite service is the primary means of communication among the [Navajo] Nation’s police, fire and emergency medical responders. Even though the public safety communications component is not part of E-rate funding and is paid for separately, the termination of the satellite transmission service affects all communications for the Nation,” the senators wrote. The FCC has received and is reviewing the letter, an FCC spokesman said. SES Americom didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A national broadband strategy would fix many U.S. problems, even some that seem unrelated to telecom, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told an Alliance for Public Technology forum Friday. Broadband deployment may have greater unintended benefits than phone rollout did, he said: “The profits [carriers] get don’t capture all the benefits to a broader society.” Adelstein suggested a national broadband summit involving the executive and legislative branches, state and local governments and the private sector. Such a meeting would “elevate the debate” and “make it clear how much of a national priority this is.”
FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein will open a DTV transition event Thursday on educating residents of rural areas and tribal lands. Cathy Seidel, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau chief, will moderate the event, 9 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the FCC. Officials of the U.S. departments of Labor, Interior and Health and Human Services, the National Congress of American Indians, the Navajo Nation Telecommunications Commission and the American Library Association are on the first panel. Representatives of Alaska, Massachusetts, the American Farm Bureau, the National Association of Counties, 4-H, the Appalachian Regional Commission and the National Grange are on the second panel. Questions can be sent during the event to dtvworkshop@fcc.gov.
Except for the public safety D-block, a headline magnet since Frontline Wireless disclosed it won’t bid, the 700 MHz auction seems to be on track, industry and regulatory sources said Tuesday. They cited the number of large entrants still in the running. Some 214 potential bidders made requisite down payments, including heavy hitters AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Google. Besides Frontline, U.S. Cellular and the Alaska subsidiary of Leap Wireless, most bowing out on down payments were small players not expected to play major roles in the sale.