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,” Dalgado 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.
