The Acting CEO of the American Samoa Telecommunications Authority Ms Falavaoto Sualevai has explained the cause of the internet and landline phone outage in parts of Tuala-uta on Saturday.
She said the partial outage in the Tafuna and Iliili areas was a result of a faulty fiber optics card in the BLAST fiber network.
This caused sporadic outages for some ASTCA broadband internet and landline customers in those areas, starting from 2:15 pm to 10:15 pm on Saturday.
Ms Sualevai said ASTCA’s technical team has since replaced the faulty equipment and is planning maintenance in the coming days to help mitigate further service disruption on the local fiber network.
She assured that customers will be given prior notice on the maintenance that will be conducted in the early hours of each maintenance day.
With the rollout of the Hawaiki Cable, ASTCA has informed customers of various packages for services that are available.
KHJ News has inquired with the Acting CEO if there is any public review for the charges of their new services, as required under the administrative process for rule making agencies of the government, ASTCA being a semi autonomous agency,
The Acting CEO said there’s no rate change for customers who were on the basic plan of unlimited wifi service for $50 per month.
However she said ASTCA has upgraded the plan to 3 megabytes.
And the $79.95 plan was upgraded to 5 megs without additional cost.
KHJ News points out however that ASTCA customers have said that the government phone company has various plans and charges for the Hawaiki service and view this as a rule change subject to the administrative review process.
Ms Sualevai however insists ASTCA is not increasing rates to the existing plans.
She points out that new plans will be introduced shortly into the market.
Title IV of the American Samoa Code Annotated states that prior to the adoption, amendment or repeal of any rule, the agency shall give at least 20 days notice of its intended action. The notice shall include a statement of either the terms or substance of the intended action or a description of the subjects and issues to be adopted and the time when, the place where, and the manner in which interested persons may present their views thereon.
“The notice shall be mailed to all persona who have made timely requests of the agency for advance notice of its rule making proceedings and shall be publicized in all news or boradcasitng media operated by the government.”
It also states that, “Prior to the adoption, amendment or repeal of any rule, the agency shall afford all interested persons reasonable opportunity to sudmit data, views and arguments, orally or in writing. In the case of substantive rules, opportunity for oral hearings shall be granted if requested by 25 persons, by a governmental subdivision or agency or by an association having not less than 25 members. The agency shall consider fully all written and oral submissions respecting the proposed rule.”
