\n
![\"IT&E](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ITE-pix2.jpg\")
<\/a>\nIn an emergency meeting convened by acting governor Ralph DLG. Torres last week, the possibility of the carrier giving back credit was brought up by Department of Finance Secretary Larissa Larson.<\/p>\n
The call for the compensation due to the outage has since gained support.<\/p>\n
Rep. Joseph \u201cLee Pan\u201d Guerrero (R-Saipan) said he is supporting the call, adding that credit should not just be given to government, but also to private business and members of the community<\/p>\n
\u201cIt (credit) should be across the board,\u201d the lawmaker said.<\/p>\n
He also questioned IT&E\u2019s maintenance and contingency plans, which he said, were \u201cnot done properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIT&E as the owner of the fiber optic cable, should have mapping of the surrounding areas. Why lay it there when there are so many rocks? Is that the only area available?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For the acting governor, the possibility of giving back credit due to outage is a topic that can be discussed in another meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are things that we can sit down and look at what needs to be done and what accommodation we can do on both sides,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
He said he acknowledges the effort of IT&E, particularly on the update the company provided as soon as the damage to its undersea cable was detected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure they don\u2019t want this to happen, and they want to expedite the repairs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Alternative<\/strong><\/p>\n Department of Lands and Natural Resources Secretary Richard Seman said it is probably time for the CNMI to look for alternatives.<\/p>\n He said there has been interests from other companies, including Japan\u2019s DoCoMo and Guam\u2019s GTA to lay down their own cables in the CNMI.<\/p>\n \u201cThe regulatory body will determine if this is possible, but another submarine cable installation will be good for the Commonwealth,\u201d Seman said.<\/p>\n He added that aside from telecommunications, the leasing of land for the submarine cable will also be good for the government because the interested parties would lease the land from the DLNR.<\/p>\n Seman said the investments of interested carriers will depend on a number of factors. He said the length of the submarine cable, the capacity, the location, and the size of the area are all factors in the appraisals of the land.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I definitely would welcome it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Work continues for fiber optic cable backup<\/p>\n IT&E, meanwhile, continued network restoration efforts over the weekend, but Internet access was not yet restored for Saipan as of press time yesterday.<\/p>\n IT&E has been working on restoring their microwave redundancy system, described by IT&E officials as the backup for the downed fiber optic cable between Saipan and Tinian.<\/p>\n The fiber optic cable between Saipan and Tinian was damaged last Wednesday, causing the current network communications crisis.<\/p>\n According to their latest press release, IT&E sent additional crews and materials to Tinian to increase capacity on the island.<\/p>\n Microwave restoration in Rota was ongoing, IT&E said last week.<\/p>\n As of press time, there was no Internet access for Saipan yet.<\/p>\n By Friday, IT&E had one DS3 microwave connection established.<\/p>\n The DS3 microwave connection provided limited communications to first responders and government agencies, IT&E said.<\/p>\n IT&E continued work on providing additional capacity to Tinian and Rota via microwave link but were hampered due to weather conditions Thursday.<\/p>\n IT&E said Thursday they began their effort to provide temporary fiber connection on Tinian as an alternative for additional capacity.<\/p>\n On Friday, Tinian and Rota had access to Internet while no access to Internet was available yet for Saipan.<\/p>\n On Friday, IT&E\u2019s head of engineering Velma Palacios said they would continue work over the weekend.<\/p>\n As of press time, Saipan had long distance calls on landline, landline interisland calls, CDMA and GSM services for voice and SMS, SMS service within the IT&E network, and free local calls for prepaid subscribers.<\/p>\n On Rota and Tinian, similar services were up plus access to the Internet.<\/p>\n More family time on Saipan<\/strong><\/p>\n With the Internet down and the weather finally clearing up, friends and families around the island have taken advantage by engaging in some leisure activities like picnics and barbecues in pala-palas and beaches that litter Saipan\u2019s coastline.<\/p>\n One community member Delbert Pua told Saipan Tribune that the network blackout on Saipan is actually a good thing for the family.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the best time for families because when we had Internet services everyone else spends their time online. Now that we don\u2019t have Internet, I was shocked to hear from parents that there are a lot of family time\u2026Something that they couldn\u2019t enjoy when they had Internet,\u201d Pua said.<\/p>\n Pua also said that if there was one good side to having no Internet is that everyone is returning to family values.<\/p>\n Amalia Magofna, 21 and one of the young generation of the CNMI, also said that the past few days were good times. Despite the younger generation having a small issue in coping with no Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, or Netflix, family time also matters to them, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is good and I enjoy the family time that we\u2019re having. It\u2019s been awhile since it has been like this and it is a great time for family to bond more,\u201d Magofna said.<\/p>\n Other members of the community on the beach areas have also said that although they don\u2019t have Internet access, the family gatherings are a plus. (With reports from Dennis B. Chan and Jayson Camacho)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Telecommunications services provider IT&E is being urged to provide credit to the CNMI due to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":208663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,5985,250,5954],"class_list":["post-208659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-delbert-pua","tag-network","tag-sms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}