Navajo Nation likely to lose Internet service (AP/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (AP) -- The thousands of Navajo Nation residents who rely on the Internet to work, study and communicate across their 27,000-square-mile reservation will be out of luck Monday, if their service provider shuts access as planned.

"It's going to be a sad day," said Ernest Franklin, director of the tribe's Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.

A tribal audit last year revealed that Utah-based provider OnSat Network Communications Inc. may have double-billed the tribe, and it raised questions about how the tribe requested bids for the Internet contract.

Those discoveries led the Universal Service Administration Co., which administers the service under the Federal Communications Commission's E-rate program, to tell the tribe March 28 that it would withhold $2.1 million from OnSat.

Jim Fitting, an attorney for OnSat, said the delay in payment means it can't pay subcontractor SES Americom for satellite time.
***
more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/04/navajo.internet.ap/index.html

Bummer. Just one more case where the people who are going to suffer from loss of service aren't the ones responsible for it happening. Makes you think about what you would do if you lost internet, cable, or phone in a similar situation. Sounds like it will probably take a while to straighten out.

[quadriga]

1. Wonder if this has anything to do

with the Navajo not allowing uranium mining on tribal land. Retaliation?

[madokie]

2. Probably so

shit happens in weird ways you know ;-)

[quadriga]

5. Those poor people already have so little

Yeah, let's just axe their contact with the outside world.

[libodem]

3. Economic hit men

[kestrel91316]

4. BINGO.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Nonsense, it's just another deeply unsettling coincidence.

I mean, those happen all the time lately.

[KamaAina]

7. Perhaps teh Google could step in, as they already offered to do in SF

for free. Not every square inch of the rez, obviously, just the settlements.

Of course, the Navajo Nation isn't exactly as juicy a marketing plum as SF, but hey, they say they're in it to do good, right?

edit: caps

[Breeze54]

8. What a crock!! GRR!! "the delay in payment means it can't pay subcontractor SES Americom for satelli

What a load of BS!! :grr: I doubt it's $$ will be the reason, they just don't want to do it!!

They were trying to bilk the Navajo Nation and now that they can't, they're using that

as an excuse to not provide services!! I hope Navajo Nation sues the pants off them!!

:kick: & Recommended