Allied Telesis @ Yokota Rocks/Sucks

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?

• Extremely worried (86%, 42 Votes)
• Not very worried (8%, 4 Votes)
• Somewhat worried (4%, 2 Votes)
• Don't care as I have a cell phone. (2%, 1 Votes)

Total Voters: 49

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As Allied Telesis Yokota continues to fair poorly in public polls, other smaller installations around the world continue to pay less for internet service than the customers of Yokota.  As reported by Stars and Stripes, Sigonella NAS internet customers will be receiving an upgrade from 2 Mb/s to 20 Mb/s for the whopping price of $46 a month.  That is nearly a $30 dollar difference from what customers 10 Mb/s customers are receiving.

In January of this year, 10 Mb/s customers who were subscribing to premium cable services and had accounts in good standing received a free upgrade to 15 Mb/s.

Unlike Yokota though, Navy installations continue to contract the services from providers without NEX, Navy’s AAFES equivalent, involvement thus allowing the customers to receive the best price for services rendered.  While performing research into this subject we discovered that AAFES has continually underperformed in the area of telecommunications either in terms of actual service performance and/or in terms of pricing plans.  It is a true shame that if there was one area where our AAFES MWR dividends could go to to help lower prices and improve services, it is the first place that AAFES continues attempt to find ways to achieve profit just to turn around and hand it back in the form of a MWR dividend or as I like to think of it, tax.  I would much rather see my MWR dividend helping lower the prices of MWR services such as phone, TV, and internet for everyone where it affects the biggest number of personnel while not catering to one group over another and providing the biggest MWR impact to an installation year round vs. for a single day or couple of hours.  Of course this is just a personal opinion and has no bearing in the bigger picture of things.

I honestly feel sorry for companies like Allied Telesis who get into a situation where they first have to contend with the AAFES propaganda machine while watching their profit margin dwindle to levels where it becomes unfeasible to continue to improve services without raising rates.  I honestly would not have this web site in operation should the rates have been set at appropriate levels.  Not AAFES appropriate levels, but outside the gate appropriate levels or even State side appropriate levels.

As I peruse the ICE reports quite frequently to get a good sampling of information to write on and differences of opinion, I have always noticed that nearly every single time anyone writes in about Allied Telesis they always say that the facilities were good, the customer service was excellent, but nearly always the product did not meet expectations.  Hopefully in time that will change, but it remains to be seen as apparently AAFES will continue to strangle any contractor who steps up to the challenge when it comes to the IT business, all in the name of the MWR dividend.