Administration Said To Pressure FCC On Global Crossing

Telecom Policy Report, Oct 15, 2003

Separate from the FCC proceeding, to address their particular concerns, the Justice Department (DOJ), FBI, DOD, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spent more than a year examining the Global Crossing matter. That examination ultimately resulted in the negotiation of an agreement with Global Crossing, New GX, and STT that established requirements for network security and protection of critical infrastructure.

Once this so-called "Network Security Agreement" was in place, the DOJ, FBI, DOD and DHS advised the commission that they had no further objections to the transfer of licenses - providing that any such license transfer be conditioned on the parties' compliance with the Network Security Agreement.

Even so, some senior-level officials at the Pentagon remain uncertain about FCC's handling of the Global Crossing license transfer, even though various U.S. law enforcement and intelligence-gathering entities appear to have given their collective blessing to the FCC's action.

"There's a great deal of sensitive information that moves over that [Global Crossing] undersea cable," one DOD source told TPR. "Just because everyone in this deal has signed onto some sort of security agreement doesn't mean that the network is going to be secure. Anytime our traffic moves along a network controlled by a foreign government, it's subject to being compromised."

This isn't the first time STT has dealt with such concerns. In 2001 when STT acquired Australian carrier Optus, military officials in Australia raised concerns similar to those now being raised by Pentagon officials. The Australians were fearful that military information moving via an Optus satellite might be compromised. However, the Optus deal - like the Global Crossing deal - eventually went through after a security agreement was put in place.

Connecting The Dots: Why Some DOD Officials Are Troubled

Born out of Singapore's telecom market liberalization, ST Telemedia was incorporated in 1994 as a privately held company in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific. STT is majority controlled by the Singapore government, which defines the company as "a competitive, commercial enterprise that owns and manages the businesses in which it has investments." STT engages in an array of telecommunications, information, communications services, including fixed and mobile communications, Internet exchange and data, satellite, broadband and cable TV. As a result of FCC approval of its plan to acquire Global Crossing's authorizations and licenses, the company will control about 100,000 miles of fiber optic network cable - some of which handles military traffic.

Source: TPR research

[Copyright 2003 PBI Media, LLC. All rights reserved.]