FSM Telecommunications Corporation (FSMTC) would like to inform all customers that you may experience brief disruptions in service in March due to a seasonal technical phenomenon called "sun outage." For a period of about two weeks, the sun causes "solar interference" to all geostationary satellite signals. The outage could disrupt calls to and from places within the FSM.
Sun outage interference to satellite-based telephone and internet service typically occur during the months of February/March and September/October. Each outage could last for up to 15 minutes, although the actual window of time the outages occur will vary depending on specific satellite and earth station locations. The effects of a sun outage vary throughout the 15 day period. The interference will gradually decrease once it reaches its peak and become less noticeable each day after.
Unfortunately, there is technically nothing we can do to prevent sun outages from occurring. Each satellite service that we receive signals from will experience this interference at predictable times. Outages will usually occur from late-morning to mid-afternoon, depending on the time of year and satellites affected. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.