In a move that could be considered ill conceived at best, Yokota is once again looking to bail out the failing AAFES sheltered telecommunications provider, Allied Telesis, with a substantial infusion of (brace yourself) US TAX DOLLARS via a possible major systems upgrade. That right folks you read it here first. Allied Telesis, a Japanese owned/operated company, is about to get bailed out of doing work they already contractually agreed to do and even submitted a proposal to perform. Remember too this is the same company who was able to finally accomplish time-shifting capabilities via AAFES purchased aka Best Customer In The World Dividend funded time shifting servers.
Over the last year since we first wrote of 9-1-1 service outage issues, Yokota’s leadership has been hearing ever increasing complaints about spotty service ranging from spotty internet speeds to 9-1-1 services from the residents of Yokota’s East Side. As the frequent rains have continued to pointed out, phone service to certain areas can go completely dead depending on the amount of rain received at any given time. Rumor has it that even the hospital itself can experience the outages.
Unlike the rest of Yokota, the East Side is quite a different beast when it comes to the telecommunication systems. For starters it has the oldest infrastructure on Yokota. During the solicitation period Allied Telesis determined that East Side of Yokota would receive Fiber to the Home installations to be completed by them. Their proposal to AAFES was subsequently reviewed and recommended for approval by the 374th Communications Squadron. However, as typical in these situations, though there was a proposal submitted, the AAFES Performance Work Statement (PWS) is really the document that determines what is to be accomplished or not so it was easy for Allied Telesis to back out of their proposal.
Regardless of what is to come in the future, Allied Telesis is unequivocally responsible for all communication systems to and from Military Family Housing Units. It is our understanding that even to this day, the memorandum of understanding between Yokota, AAFES, and Allied Telesis continues to state as such.
Below is extracted from the PWS:
In item 4, we see that Allied Telesis must integrate into the base DSN network. In item 5, a definition of a Class 5 switching features is as follows:
Class 5 switch
The fundamental difference between a Class 5 and the other classes of exchange is that a Class 5 provides telephone service to customers, and as such is concerned with "subscriber type" activities: generation of dial-tone and other "comfort noises"; handling of network services such as advice of duration and charge etc. Specifically, a Class 5 switch provides dial tone, local switching and access to the rest of the network.
To clarify what a Class 5 switch is:
Class 5 exchanges were those to which subscribers and end-users telephone lines would connect.
In translation, Allied Telesis owns the lines and trunking between the MFH customer all the way to where they integrate into the base DSN network. Regardless of what the memorandum of understanding states, the performance work statement is what they are contractually bound to. So any outage between a MFH unit and where Yokota’s DSN network begin are all for Allied Telesis to own, repair, and replace 100%. Should Yokota bail them out again, it would be arguable that the funds were misappropriated and should be subject to review by AFAA (Air Force Audit Agency).
To continue further, item 8 and 9 are still not being accomplished as Allied Telesis has yet to appropriately provide continuous support for the E911 capabilities for their areas of responsibility. What this translates out to is that the Fire Department, Security Forces, and Hospital may not have the most current information available within their system for your particular phone number, such as location and/or name of resident. Allied Telesis has not provided monthly data calls unless prompted and has, according to reliable sources, even gone so far as to say that it is not their job to provide a E911 capability that can interface with existing systems. We have been told that getting a current copy of the database from Allied Telesis at regular intervals such as once a week to once a month has been problematic at best.
Some of the arguments about providing funding to improve the telecommunications structure center around the fact that Allied Telesis is not making much profit at all. I have yet to see any indication that there has been an audit or a thorough review of Allied Telesis’s books let alone any true finding that shows just how much in the red or black they really are. Heck, even to this day they still have not paid IP Triple Communications, the original phone provider who was shamelessly smeared in the Stars and Stripes by both AAFES officials and Allied Telesis managers, for services rendered. It is shameful to think that as customers forced under this flim-flam company and protected by the AAFES might, should we not pay our bills on time our husbands and wives could be subject to punishment, but when an AAFES contractor does it, everyone claims innocence.
Anybody remember this article from the Stars and Stripes?
By Bryce S. Dubee, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, October 5, 2008
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The former phone service provider for Allied Telesis at Yokota contends the recent disruption of base customers’ incoming calls was because Allied owed it money and not the result of “service problems,” as Allied initially told customers.
Carl A. Maybin II, president of Hawaii-based IP Triple Communications Inc., said Friday in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes that Allied has owed them more than $140,000 since January and that his company blocked incoming calls to Yokota customers because Allied wouldn’t pay the bill.
He also claims Allied didn’t pay for their total number of subscribers during the first year of the contract, and instead only paid for the agreed-upon 2,000-subscriber minimum.
Allied Telesis officials dispute Maybin’s claims and say they have filed a suit against the company, which they replaced with a new provider. Allied did not provide details of the lawsuit Friday.
The two companies signed a three-year contract in October 2006 for IP Triple to provide Voice over Internet Protocol phone service at Yokota. The contract came with the option of renewal in three-year installments.
IP Triple began blocking incoming calls at Yokota on Sept. 18. Callers receive an error message telling them that the number they were trying to reach was “unallocated.”
Larry Salgado, Yokota’s Army and Air Force Exchange Service general manager, said via e-mail that its communications contractor, Allied, submitted “trouble tickets” to IP Triple, who responded that the “problem was being investigated.”
Salgado said AAFES eventually learned that IP Triple had blocked the calls. He said IP Triple explained that blockage was a “business failure.”
Maybin told Stripes that they sent AAFES a notice about the delinquent bill last month, but received no response.
Salgado said AAFES was “not aware of any instances of problems with Allied payments to creditors or subcontractors.”
He also said that before the blockage began, Allied had been looking for a new carrier because of constant customer complaints about the phone service.
Allied intensified their search after the service was cut and hired a new company, which began providing service last week.
“Allied completed this process — which normally takes 60-90 days — in less than two weeks,” Salgado said of hiring a new carrier.
About 98 percent of Allied customers were able to keep their phone numbers, he said.
Allied and AAFES officials declined to name the new company, saying nondisclosure was due to legal concerns.
Because of the change in phone providers, the access number that callers from outside Yokota must use to contact Allied customers on base has changed to 03-4580-0135.
Maybin said in an e-mail Friday that he plans to continue pursuing the money he believes IP Triple is owed.
Please take a serious note of this date and time of the quote from the article:
Salgado said AAFES was “not aware of any instances of problems with Allied payments to creditors or subcontractors.”
Well, I wonder how in the world this email was circulating around the AAFES world(s) and they still were somehow unaware of the problem:
From: Xxxx Xxxxxx @iptriple.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:27 AM
To: Xxxxxxxxx, Xxxxx X. @aafes.com; Xxxxxxxx, Xxxxxxxx @aafes.com
CC: Xxxx Xxxxxx @iptriple.com
Subject: Yokota Voice Challenges
Aloha Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx,
We have come up with the proposed solution for Yokota AB and its Voice challenges. The position of IP Triple is that we would either need direct billing to AAFES or the customer and it would cost one time $134,000.00. The ongoing costs would increase but would be absorbed by IP Triple as it would be for 2 PRI local circuits from NTT West as we discussed.
I would like to have a conf call to discuss this at your convenience.
**Content removed due to Allied Telesis & IP Triple Communications litigations**
I would like to propose a suggestion to the brain child of the tax payer funded telecommunication infrastructure upgrade in MFH. How about when Allied Telesis makes good on all their bills and what is required under the contract…ie, what was shown above for the minimum requirements for phone services and below for television services before we even consider throwing them a bone. Hey, they are charging the obscene rates and somehow still not making money because of their investment.
Speaking of investment too, “Where exactly did you do any investing?” I mean after all, Allied Telesis attempted to lowball Americable Japan into a situation where they would practically walk away from the infrastructure they built out over years without adequate compensation. When Americable decided to stick it to Allied Telesis and the telecommunications government representative at the meeting, who oddly had a very anti-Americable attitude to be frank, everyone started point fingers and working to figure out how they could just get away with blaming the other guy. One could even argue that the telecommunications government representative’s mentality was biased negatively towards Americable Japan considering it was his dream to have this Triple Play Network thing on base. To go even further back, he wrote the original performance work statement in a way that could force Americable Japan into a position where they could not bid due to the method they used to deploy services. Shocking huh how his bias forced us all into this situation we are all in now.
I truly wonder if this telecommunications government representative is really the brain child for wanting to use our tax dollars to help out Allied Telesis and their supposed fiscal bind bull. I mean it would seem likely that the potential for a unhealthy bias exists considering past actions. I would contend that their fiscal bind is more attributable to the decline in their stock price rather than Yokota. What was once a 4400 Yen per share stock in June 2004 is now hovering barely at 50 Yen per share and their market share has steadily declined since 2006 as their products have had less than sterling reviews aside from where they were the very lowest bidder on government contracts.
I guess I should draw this to a close and just ask for AAFES to demand that Allied Telesis to Man Up and meet the obligations that you signed up for…and for God’s sake…pay your stinkin’ bills so we do not have another service outage and oh yeah, stop begging for Yokota to help you out considering you are sucking the residents dry already. You guys really ought to be ashamed of yourselves and for your conduct.
