Data networks sail through Y2K tests By Reuters Special to CNET News.com July 15, 1999, 12:00 p.m. PT A trade group said today that its testing had found no 2000-related glitches in networks that may carry more than a trillion dollars a day in U.S. credit card and other financial transactions.

"It's 'D' minus six months and all systems are go," said Martin McCue, chairman of the Washington-based Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, or ATIS.

The group's latest drill dealt with frame relay networks, the web of systems that authorize U.S. credit card purchases and zap financial data to Federal Reserve clearing houses.

Nancy Pierce, ATIS Director of Industry Forums, estimated more than $1.1 trillion in transactions were processed daily over the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.

"No Year 2000 date change anomalies were found during the testing," which went all the way from swiping a credit card at a simulated point of sale to settlement, ATIS reported.

At issue were fears that some computers may crash or scramble data by misreading 2000 as 1900, the result of old space constraints that pared the date field to two digits.

Tested in the latest round were the rollovers from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000; February 28, 2000, to February 29, 2000; December 31, 2000, to January 1, 2001; and February 28, 2001, to March 1, 2001. The industry-wide testing was carried out in partnership with the Y2K Financial Networks Readiness Consortium, or FNRC, an industry group concerned with 2000's possible impact on data transmission.

The FNRC is made up of American Express, Bank of America, First Data, JP Morgan, Mastercard International, MBNA America, Total System Services, Visa, and Wells Fargo.

ATIS member companies Bell Atlantic, MCI WorldCom, and SBC Communications served as primary participants in the latest round of internetwork interoperability testing.

The next phase of drills by the ATIS-sponsored Interoperability Test Coordination Committee will assess the date changes' possible impact on international calling. It will take place in August and September, said Daniel Currie, chairman of the test panel.

In test results released in February and April, the ATIS test panel reported no glitches in U.S. interconnected telecommunications networks and public switched telephone networks.

Nearly 2,500 representatives from 500 companies take part in ATIS panels, which develop and test U.S. network interconnection standards.

-- Cliff (x@y.com), July 16, 1999

Answers

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Y2K Testing of Credit Card Transactions, Data Transmissions Conducted

U.S. Data Networks Successful Y2K Test

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), July 16, 1999.