On page B11 of the April 14 Wall St. Journal, staff reporter Rebecca Blumenstein says AT&T feels its $650 million remediation effort has protected its networks, "but concern is growing that the networks of some of the other hundreds of phone companies around the world are falling behind."

Article says every phhone call is handed off to numerous networks, that international calls get even more handoffs and that each handoff is critical.

The FCC has a committee, the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council, which meets today to issue an updated assessment.

AT&T's y2k czar, A. John Pasqua, says "a lot of countries haven't even started [remediation efforts] yet"

With regard to smaller phone companies in the US, Pasqua says "The data show they are falling behind."

Commentary by Puddintame: Is de Jager's recent optimism reserved for AT&T customers who only communicate with other AT&T customers? Is Pasqua really DIetER instead of a vice-president of AT&T? Can Diane or another Yourdon Street Irregular get copy from the NRIC assessment?

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), April 14, 1999

Answers

This is really bad news, if true. A lot of people think of me as a unremediable doomer but I had been counting on telecom being reasonably okay and the Net making it through (now you see my REAL biases). Any Polly telecom EXPERTS out there who can make me feel better?

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), April 14, 1999.

IMHO, the phones were always the one thing I felt sure would not make it. No proof, just gut feeling. I just think there are to many of those little chipies in the phone system, to even have a chance to get it right. (IMHO)

-- SCOTTY (BLehman202@aol.com), April 14, 1999.

I could swear that I read last month (?) that Chevron and AT&T will *not* make it on time. Am I right...?

M. Moth

-- M. Moth (derigueur2@aol.com), April 14, 1999.

The pathetic status of telecom industry has really taken most experts by surprise. According to the latest Martin Weiss Independent audit & survey, here are the latest Weiss ratings: Ameritech-below average. MCI-low. BellSouth-low. Airtouch-low. US West-below average. Bell Atlantic-below average. Weiss said," Of all the industries groups, they've made the least amount of progress... Not one telecom company received a "High" rating. That worries me." I will try to post the ratings of some of the fortune 500 like Intel, GM later on a new thread. Not good.

-- Raymond Kwong (kcorner67@hotmail.com), April 14, 1999.

Links! Anybody got links to this stuff??

-- rick blaine (y2kazoo@hotmail.com), April 14, 1999.

Rick, The WSJ requires paid registration. It seems their articles normally pop up on MSNBC or some other open site after they've been aged for a day or two. The paid registration is the only reason I bother mentioning the WSJ articles on the forum.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), April 14, 1999.

I worked at GTE California (Thousand Oaks) back around 1990. Equal opportunity Dilbert-land. Nuff said.

-- vbProg (vbProg@MicrosoftAndIntel.com), April 14, 1999.

Thanks Ron (for link from other thread) and Puddintame,

You mean this?

Diane

Y2K Communications Sector Report: On Tuesday, March 30, 1999, the Federal Communications Commission, in conjunction with the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council, released the Y2K Communications Sector Report.

This report covers five industry sectors: wireline telephone, wireless telephone, cable television, broadcast television and radio, and satellite. In addition, the Report included special sections dedicated to the international telephone network and emergency services.

http://www.fcc.gov/ year2000/y2kcsr.html

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

Also post here ...

Federal Communications Commission web-site ...

http://www.fcc.gov/

Look at the headlines ... Network Reliability and Interoperability Council to Hold Meeting on April 14, 1999 ...

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Miscellaneous/ Public_Notices/1999/pnmc9027.html

... The meeting will review progress reports of Focus Groups 1 and 2, giving recommendations on and results from testing of telecommunications networks and Year 2000 issues. In addition, Focus Group 3 will provide a status report and the Network Reliability Steering Committee will provide its quarterly report. ...

... The meeting will be taped in closed-captioned TV. The audio portion of the meeting will be broadcast live on the Internet via the FCC's Internet audio broadcast page at http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio. The FCC's Y2K Internet Home Page is found at ...

http://www.fcc.gov/year2000

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

Diane, are you some kind of researcher in real life, a librarian perhaps? You do such good research, a lot of which is drier than dirt except for the hidden gems. Just a question and, thank you for your efforts.

-- (belicos@share.net), April 14, 1999.