By Dermot Cole
Alaska Dispatch News
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — A Fairbanks judge has ordered Alaska Communications to provide updated phone information to the Fairbanks North Star Borough for thousands of people in the Fairbanks area to improve 911 service, arguing that refusing to do so creates an “unacceptable danger” to public safety.
Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Bethany Harbison granted a preliminary injunction sought by the borough to get the information from the phone company. Her order, issued Thursday, said that “effective immediately,” Alaska Communications -- better known to many Alaskans as ACS -- should provide subscriber list information to a borough computer site at least daily, following national standards.
She said that the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to determine what rate, if any, should be paid by the borough for the service and that the borough should not pay until the FCC rules.
She said the borough “has probable success on the merits” of its argument that Alaska Communications should make updated phone information available, in the same manner as other carriers and in the same way that it provides to other 911 systems, while the FCC matter is pending.
The borough filed a lawsuit against ACS in August, saying the company was not providing the updated phone listings needed to keep the 911 system current. Alaska Communications has tangled with the borough over compensation for the information, saying it wanted reasonable terms.
The borough charged that ACS was “endangering the health and safety” of thousands of Fairbanks residents by failing to provide updated phone numbers. The borough said that GCI was providing the service.
“As a result, borough citizens face an impending disaster -- a 911 call for help from someone in distress who is not able to verbally communicate,” the borough charged in its Aug. 25 complaint in state court.
ACS rejected the claims, saying public safety was a top priority and claiming it was providing all the data the borough needed to keep current but the borough wasn’t processing the data as it should.
The judge said Alaska Communications was required to do more than make the data available.
“It must actually ‘transmit’ the data to the borough,” she said. “It has not done this. In fact, until very recently, ACS has insisted that it did not even know that the borough had a secure FTP site for receiving transmitted data.”
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©2014 the Alaska Dispatch News (Anchorage, Alaska)