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April 05, 2008

Navajo nation to Lose Their Internet Monday

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.

[...]

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.

"With USAC taking this particular position, it doesn't look like we're going to get paid in the foreseeable future," Fitting said. "We're already $4 million in the hole, so why should we continue doing it?"

Most evenings, when residents get off work, the reservation's chapter houses are closed, but their wireless signals remain live. So it's common to see residents with laptops sitting outside the chapter houses in cars, working away, a local official said.

(via cnn )

Posted by Groonk at April 5, 2008 01:28 PM | Ministry of Intertube Madness

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