[ OUR OPINION ]
LOADED with federal dollars, a recently formed company has begun work to lay fiber-optic cable aimed at providing telecommunications links among all Department of Hawaiian Home Lands residents. Skepticism about the $500 million cost of the project is warranted. The project seemingly will have to expand its reach enormously to justify the expenditure, far exceeding its avowed purpose. Homelands cable project
is questionable
THE ISSUE Work has begun on a fiber-optic cable network linking Hawaiian Home Lands throughout Hawaii.
Sandwich Isles Communications Inc. already has received three federal installments totaling more than $165 million. The federal funding, which will total $400 million, is provided by the Federal Communications Commission through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service. The remaining $100 million is to come from private investors.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie announced release of the most recent installment in November, praising the project as a provider of jobs. He said it "will make telecommunication service possible for some of our state's most underserved areas and offer wide-ranging possibilities for Hawaii to fulfill its potential in the 21st century information economy."
But at what price? The stated purpose is to provide high-tech telecommunications to 20,000 residences on Hawaiian Home Lands. However, most of those homes have not been built and, at present rates of construction, won't be for 40 years. Even if they existed, that works out to $25,000 per home, an absurd Internet admission fee.
Political connections abound. Sandwich Isles' president is Al Hee, brother of Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chairman Clayton Hee. The chief executive officer is retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Kihune, a Kamehameha Schools trustee. Gil Tam, former Bishop Estate (now Kamehameha Schools) executive, is vice president. Tam told the Maui News that the idea for the project came from Hoaliku Drake, the mother of former House speaker and Bishop Estate trustee Henry Peters. Drake is former chairwoman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, which approved the non-bid agreement.
The company's potential profitability would be slim if it were to confine itself to Hawaiian Home Lands residents, although Tam says the company's "social mission" is limited to serving Hawaiian Home Lands. "We don't want to be a big telephone company like Verizon," which has its own fiber-optic network, he says.
However, the company's plans to connect all six major Hawaiian islands, extending from rural areas to urban Honolulu, could bring it into competition with Verizon Wireless and Oceanic Communications. Tam acknowledges that the company's goal is to build -- on Hawaiian Home Lands -- "a first-class infrastructure to attract high-tech businesses to Hawaii."
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