Navajo Nation may go offline
p2pnet news | Freedom:- It looks as though the Albuquerque’s Navajos may lose their Net connection.
Reservation residents rely on Net access to improve their professional and educational lives, the Associated Press has Navajo president Joe Shirley saying.
“It would be a very sad day for the children and people of the Navajo Nation if the dark clouds descend, the lights go out, and access is denied to the chapter houses on the reservation, in large part, because USAC [Universal Service Administration Co] has failed to timely fund our application,” Shirley said in a December letter to Mel Blackwell, vice president of USAC’s Schools and Libraries Division.
A 2007 audit revealed Utah provider OnSat Network Communications may have double-billed the tribe and this raised questions on whether or not the nation complied with federal rules requiring it to choose the most cost-effective service or equipment through a, “fair, open and competitive bidding process,” says the story.
This led to USAC, which administers the service under the Federal Communications Commission’s E-rate program, telling the Navajos it would “withhold $2.1 million from OnSat,”says AP.
The nation has until May to respond and, “the USAC can release full or partial funding or continue to withhold funding, said spokeswoman Laura Betancourt,” according to the story, which adds:
“Tribal regulator [Ernest] Franklin said he has given the USAC documents detailing how OnSat was selected and has shown USAC personnel the service operating last year at sites they randomly selected.
“We proved that we are delivering the bandwidth and that we went through the proper procurement system,” he said. “We had to dig up all these documents.”
OnSat will continue to provide Internet services for the tribe’s Division of Public Safety and the Office of the President and Vice President, offices whose satellite service isn’t dependent on FCC funding, says AP.
Associated Press – Navajo Nation to Lose Internet Signal. April 4, 2008
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April 4th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Don’t let this happen. Go Navajo!
April 5th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Wow, what a huge snafu. I think they need to re-engineer the Federal system to ensure that circumstances like this don’t cause problems anymore. Typical Federal buffoonery. On the other hand, it’s nice to see they are paying attention to the flow of money, and raising an eyebrow. Typical they would do this to a Native American tribe, and not our own Legislative branch of government, which raises more than a few eyebrows with Americans, concerning monetary expenditures.