msnbc.com
Telecom firms ask State Department for help in preparation for year 2000
By Rebecca Blumenstein
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK, April 19 — AT&T Corp. and the nation's telecommunications industry have asked the State Department for help in preparing phone networks world-wide for potential year-2000 disruptions. The request was made after a Federal Communications Commission meeting last week that looked into the readiness of the world's phone companies for potential problems once the year 2000 begins.
AT&T CHAIRMAN C. MICHAEL ARMSTRONG chairs the committee, which is called the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council.
AT&T officials said that while most large U.S. phone companies are well prepared, there is growing evidence that many smaller phone companies and a number of regions around the world run a “high risk” for problems.
“Internationally, it appears that the readiness has worsened,” said A. John Pasqua, an AT&T vice president in charge of the company's year-2000 program. “There has been a shift of some of these countries from medium to high risk.”
How other countries are prepared could directly affect the U.S. because the global telecommunications system relies on the interconnection of the networks of many countries. Calls are handed off from one company to another, often without callers realizing it. Any disruption in any of those links could cause problems, say officials.
“The FCC remains concerned about whether enough is being done on a global basis to ensure that there are no significant network disruptions or failures,” according to the council's report. With updates from more than 190 countries, the council says that based on averages that are not weighted, Western Europe, North America and the Asia/Pacific region are categorized as low to medium risk. Other regions generally face medium to high risk of disruption.
The council has asked the State Department and other federal agencies for help in identifying and working with those countries with the worst problems, especially those that have a lot of traffic with the U.S.
Most callers within the U.S. likely won't witness disruptions, especially if they use one of the larger phone companies. “There are 1,270 telephone companies in the U.S. and about the top 20% support approximately 99% of the access lines,” said Mr. Pasqua.
“We continue to show great progress domestically in preparing for year 2000,” he added. However, hundreds of smaller, independent providers continue to fall behind the large companies such as AT&T, which has spent $650 million to date in preparing its systems for potential problems.
According to the FCC, nearly half of the smaller companies said they had no formal process for preparing for the year 2000.
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