Allow other providers to service DHHL lands
Sandwich Isles Communications has been the Department of Hawaiian Homelands exclusive voice/data provider since 1995. The FCC then issued an order on July 3, 2017, voiding SIC’s exclusive license to service Hawaiian Homestead areas statewide.
Sandwich Isles’s ability to service DHHL areas since then has come into question due ongoing litigation on several fronts.
Their ability to reliably provide service really took a hit Wednesday when the FCC finalized the 49 million dollar administrative penalty against them for abusing the Universal Service Fund program. This coupled with the bankruptcy of its sister company, Paniolo Cable Co., and the ongoing lawsuit by USDA RUS seeking the recovery of $138 million in outstanding loans, makes SIC’s future especially bleak.
The individuals, families, and business living and operating on DHHL lands will be the only ones that will suffer if SIC is unable to continue provide voice/data service. This is why other providers, such as Spectrum and Hawaiian Telcom, should be allowed to provide service on DHHL lands, especially since the fate of SIC remains unclear at this point.
Aaron Stene
Kailua-Kona
Every great nation has adversaries
It’s October, and a pandemic has engulfed the planet. The disease is a virus that attacks the respiratory system and can cause death very quickly. It’s a global event and all nations have been affected, socially, economically, psychologically and emotionally.
For decades, the United States of America has been a global leader in science, technology and medicine. It has been looked up to as having the best problem solvers in the world. But because of bad, self-serving leadership the nation has been the hardest hit. It has the largest death toll and is unable to cope with this pandemic even within its own borders. Many nations have restricted Americans from traveling to their countries.
Every great nation has adversaries. But when the leaders of that nation embrace those adversaries for self-serving reasons of profit and gain, it could lead to its demise; no mater how strong that nation might be.
A true democracy should have a fail-safe mechanism or it can’t be considered a democracy. Aboard a U.S. nuclear submarine; if the captain is making decisions that threaten the safety that ship or the nation it represents, he can be removed from his post and arrested, if necessary. What happened to our sentinels? Have they been bought-off too? Is the United States of America no longer a democracy?
I keep waiting for somebody or somebodies to stand up and take some sort of action. Are they all afraid of losing their jobs and positions or are they all part of it too? Did some sort of a coup happen? Has the USA, been secretly changed to a non-democracy? It’s just puzzling how the American people, including the lawmakers, can just stand back and just let it all happen.
What next? Do we all just follow the leader; and do what ever it takes to stay on top of it?
I certainly hope not. I believe in America and trust that there are more people with a sense of good than without any sense at all. God bless us.
Joe Marcelin
Kailua-Kona
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