Allied Telesis @ Yokota Rocks/Sucks

With as much bad publicity as it got when the entire Allied Telesis Yokota base phone system went down for an extended period of time (more than a day), Allied Telesis quickly moved to correct the problem and to get it out there publicly that the loss of service was through no fault of their own.  Allied Telesis even went so far as to file a lawsuit against the then servicing company IP Triple Communications for what essentially was a breach of contract and the accusation that IP Triple Communications made false statements to shift blame for the outage.  Allied Telesis for a period of time even prominently displayed a copy of the pleading on their website for all to see as proof of their taking the situation seriously. 

It has been nearly a year now since the filing hit the streets and little has been said about it.  Allied has removed all evidence of the filing from their website and little is remembered as what was a serious loss of service to all.

After a bit of research we have discovered that Allied Telesis and IP Triple have been in court as recently as the last 30 days and a final decision looms on the horizon to either validate Allied Telesis’s assertions that loss of services was through no fault of their own and was not an issue they were aware of or to expose the new truth of the matter, one of which many of us would be interested in knowing considering everyone from Allied Telesis to AAFES denied any prior knowledge of the potential outage.  What ever the outcome, it will be truly enlightening to say the least.

*To read the pleading submitted by Allied Telesis, click on the first page below.

As we take a serious look at the services rendered by Allied Telesis Yokota, we continue to feel that it was important to allow the community to openly discuss issues and articles posted on this site.  We have made modifications to our normal commenting requirements which typically would force users to maintain a user account with us to leave a comment.  As many of us like to remain behind the scenes saying what we feel, but doing so in a way that does not jeopardize our careers and personal interests, we felt that this change in policy would open up the door to many readers who may have something to say on any given topic.  Our only request is that you keep it clean, do not call out individuals by name regardless, and be respectful to all opinions.  Everyone deserves to be heard regardless of opinion so keep an open mind to what others say.

Thanks for your continued reading and we hope to hear from you all soon.

As everyone knows, I really do not hold back anything good nor bad when I am posting comments on this site.  I have in the past commended Allied Telesis for their service and customer support when it meets and/or exceeds the standard by which they are contracted.  I make no bones about it though, I and many others feel that Allied Telesis has been getting away with highway robbery at times either for their lack of compliance with their contract or for their lack of accountability to the community in terms of pricing and/or service standards.

Recently, there was an allegation made on this site stating that I delete comments of a positive nature about Allied from this site.  Allied Telesis Rocks/Sucks.org comment management policy is as follows: 

We welcome all comments of a positive, neutral, and negative nature from all parties on this site.  We reserve the right to edit, modify, and/or delete any comment that is derogatory and/or defamatory without cause in nature or determined to be of an individual not stationed on Yokota Air Base.  Comments from AAFES and Allied Telesis employees are always welcomed and highly encouraged and will be posted in their entirety or shorted for content, but only after both Allied Telesis Rocks/Sucks.org and the commenting party have come to an agreement as to how to best post the comment.

That being said, we recently had some comments posted to our petition portion of the website that will be deleted, as obviously do not belong on the petition, but still merit being read by all parties.

From:  Not A Drama Queen
Date: June 1, 2009 @ 22:40:56

I know this comment will be deleted like any positive comment on this site has before, but I wanted to say that I am surprised no one mentions how great the Internet has been doing on the West Side area of the base. A lot of people have noticed much faster speeds over the last month or so. I wanted to thank AT for that. This service is still a lot better than almost every other base I have ever been at, which makes it kind of makes this site seem like a bit of a day time soap opera freaking out about temporary phone outages. It happens with all companies.

Anyways, I think AT is doing a great job improving their services!

We also received a response to this message from an opposing point of view.

From:  Unbelievable
Date: June 4, 2009 @ 17:23:10

To not a drama queen,

I live on the West side and you must be delusional. The service has not been improving, in fact it has gotten worse. Having to reboot every day and waiting forever for a simple page to load is ridiculous. There is no reason to thank AT for anything. So unless you are friends with the owner or getting services “for a special price” I would say you should take your comment else where. We are not trying for a soap opera. What we are trying for is service that is fair. Not a rip off that we are all forced to take because of our location. If a lot of people have noticed the faster speeds, where are they and why am I not getting it? What other bases have you been to that are so horrible? I know it can’t be any bases in Japan as I have seen most of their services. I think you should take your chipper comment and prove it to us who have crappy service all year through. People like you aggravate me because you come in while people are trying to accomplish something and run your mouth. Take it somewhere else please. We are trying to get better service for all of Yokota. Although, if yours is so perfect, please let me know so that if the service does start improving we can tell them to skip your house.

Personally, I applaud you for placing a positive and obviously heartfelt comment on this site.  I would ask you to consider doing it again in the future if you feel that we are off base about something or another.  In fact, we would be interested in offering you the ability to write for our site, but you must contact us directly.  It is always good to have an opposing point of view.  I would ask you though to examine what you are saying a bit more closely as the comment of “It happens with all companies.” appears to be misguided or rather misleading.  All phone service providers must meet the requirements under FCC regulations.  Allied Telesis manages a pseudo system that leverages VoIP and POTS jointly to meet the customers service requirements.  It would be one thing if VoIP went down as it did for several days as it did before because VoIP is universally recognized to be an inconsistent service.  This is why services such as Vonage and others have a 9-11 support disclaimer when you sign up for their service.  Conversely, POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) must meet a minimum service capability because of situations such as power outages, fires, natural disasters, etc.  The FCC spells out explicitly the minimum requirements for said services and even military installations must meet a minimum standard of service that is akin to the FCC regulations.

That being said, you should recognize the importance of having a phone to call 9-11 for emergencies and other situations that enter the safety and security realm.  Cell phones, while increasing in popularity, are not a suitable substitute for a land line during natural disasters as cell towers are easily overwhelmed by the sharply increased call volume.  This can be seen time and time again during any natural disaster both in the states and in Japan.

On a personal note, living where we do on base we see almost weekly EMT’s responding to an incident involving a young children in housing.  How would you like to be the parent of that child and pick up the phone to call 9-11 to be greeted with no dial tone?  I do not think that anyone would feel that it is okay to not at least have 9-11 service available at a minimum.

Thanks to a tip from a reader, we were informed that Bldg 4823 was recently without dial tone for an extended period of time this morning.  We were informed around 8:00 AM this Sunday morning, well outside the listed system maintenance times.  As we have learned from our recent interest into this public safety arena that usually when there is no dial tone it means that there is no power.  I would love to say that this is an isolated incident, but ever since they came online we have been hearing about these problems or even experiencing them first hand on occasion.

While power may not be the reason behind the outage, it does show that once again 911 services have been compromised.  For SOFA residents living overseas on this can present a situation that calls into question the reasoning behind having an on base phone.  How are we to notify SFS or the FD of a problem in our home?  How about if we spotted a fence jumper as is often seen in the West and East housing areas?  In an era when everyone has heightened awareness to acts of terrorism you would think that having phones that were reliable, especially on a military installation, would be of concern.  I can say for a certainty that this wasn’t an issue when the 374th Communications Squadron was providing service to the residents.

I certainly hope that this serious public safety issue is corrected immediately because I would hate to have this issue come to head after something truly serious happened.

OUTAGE STATUS UPDATE @ 6:52PM

Dial tones have returned to the residents of Bldg 4823, but incoming calls do not ring within the home.  After several test calls, residents have determined that though there is no ring, if the receiver is lifted they can continue to have a conversation.  Obviously the residents only picked up the phone because they knew another person was calling at that time though no ringing occurred.

Yokota residents beware!  Allied Telesis Yokota has once again failed to provide adequate emergency power for 911 service during power outages to you.  A little less than a week ago, the base lost power in most areas and all residential phone services failed to operate.  This is not the first time that such an incident has occured at Yokota.  Back in November 2007, power was shut down to sections of North and West housing areas which first flagged the issue to Allied Telesis management regarding the lack of adequate backup power for their equipment.  Since then, as indicated by this subsequent outage, this critical aspect of security and public safety has been overlooked and the members of Yokota must once again rely on using their cell phones if them have them to be able to call 911 for an emergency.  Sadly, it looks as if it is going to take a tragic circumstance to occur before this situation ever is corrected.  Hopefully it does not come to this as the outcome of such a circumstance would more than likely be a lawsuit that could call into question AAFES complicity to allow such areas of public safety to be overlooked while reaping the benefits of the revenue generation.

If you picked up your phone to call 911 and there was no dial tone, how concerned would you be?

• Not very worried
• Somewhat worried
• Extremely worried
• Don't care as I have a cell phone.

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