Hello all,

I found an interesting Web site on the readiness of the telecommunication industry.

http://www.telcoyear2000.org

They are posting results of their testing across the interface of different telephone companies. The results are below.

______________________________________________________________

The information presented in this report is based on preliminary testing results and analysis and does not represent the final disposition of the test results or the final position of the Telco Year 2000 Forum. These results are based on tests completed as of October 15, 1998.

The Telco Forums Network Interoperability Testing is scheduled to take place between July 1998 and December 1998. Actual network testing began on July 6, 1998 with the test of a management configuration. Since then testing has been initiated on all four of the test clusters depicted in the web site overview of the Telco Year 2000 Forums Network Interoperability Testing Initiative.

Status Number of Test Cases Passed 1024 Referred to Supplier 7 Total Test Completed 1031

Note: All test anomalies have been referred to the respective supplier for review and resolution. The respective suppliers have already resolved five (5) of the identified anomalies.

______________________________________________________________

Sound pretty good until I read the section on the basis of the testing as follows.

______________________________________________________________ Test Facilities The Forum's interoperability testing program will be conducted in fifteen separate laboratories operated by the member companies. *******The testing will involve the test of suppliers Year 2000 ready equipment or management system releases.*********** In some test configurations multiple laboratory sites in different states will be connected using T1 facilities established for the testing program. _______________________________________________________________

Notice the sentence in the asterisks. This was performed on hardware and software that was certified as 2000 ready. My question is To what extent do all the telephone companies have the latest and greatest from their vendors? Can they upgrade all equipment in 1 YEAR ? I am glad to see the telephone companies do not trust the vendors and are testing the equipment all ready certified as 2000 ready. What they don't say with the number of test cases involved, how many pieces of equipment were used ? 7?

For a glimpse check out the following link.

http://bsonline.bellsouth.net/year2000/y2k_comp_status_state_wireline.html

Bellsouth as an example is only 62% complete with installing the latest and greatest hardware and software over a 9 state area!!!

Looks like it is time to decide who gets phone service and who does not. I hope the power utilities get their systems fixed!!!!

Mike

-- Mike (justmike11@yahoo.com), November 24, 1998

Answers

"Fixing" it before or after 2000, all hinges on the power companies staying "up" at least the bulk of the time.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 24, 1998.

Actually no (at least not in the UK). I was talking to a man in BT (our biggest telephone company, like ATT in USA). Apparently precisely because of the importance of telephones in a situation where the power is out, all phone exchanges have battery backup (for the short term) and most have emergency generators (for the longer term). So, the phones keep being powered unless they can't get fuel any more.

Phone companies don't actually need a lot of power, and in fact the generators that they have in the UK are in many cases overkill. This is wartime contingency planning; the phone company is also a last- resort emergency electricity supplier. (Power stations are impossible to hide and are big targets; phone exchanges aren't).

Personal planning: make sure you have at least one phone that plugs in only to the phone socket, not also to the mains electricity!

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), November 27, 1998.

Question for Nigel, did your man at BT have anything to see about their y2k preparation. My caller display unit indicates the date/time of every call, can't remember whether it has 4 digit years or not (if that matters).

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), November 27, 1998.

anything to say I mean

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), November 27, 1998.