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To: JMD who wrote (21401)	1/15/1999 10:20:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

Standards> commnow.com

To: JMD who wrote (21401)	1/15/1999 10:21:00 PM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Interesting thing about one handset jamming a whole "cell." January 15, 1999 Cell Phone Jams Thousands of Calls Filed at 7:36 p.m. EST By The Associated Press CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. (AP) -- When the mysterious white car with tinted windows and a small satellite dish on top pulled up to Calvin Simpson's motor home, the retired engineer was puzzled. ''I thought, ''What are those guys doing?' Then they came up to me, and I said, ''Uh-oh.' '' The men, engineers for GTE Wireless, had found their culprit. For 10 days, Simpson's cellular phone had been jamming cellular service for tens of thousands of customers in Florida's Citrus and Hernando counties. GTE Wireless customers in the region began reporting trouble with their phones on Jan. 4 -- the same day Simpson, 74, brought his motor home to the Crystal Isle RV Resort for the winter from his home in South Portland, Maine. Engineers still aren't sure what caused the problem, but they think Simpson's phone was constantly transmitting signals to a ''set-up channel'' on a cellular phone tower behind Crystal River's City Hall. The channel is supposed to take signals and relay them to their destinations. Simpson's phone, however, sent signals to the channel even when he wasn't trying to make a call. Whenever his phone was on, the constant signal prevented any cellular phone user from making a call via that tower. GTE Wireless spent days in Crystal River trying to figure out what was causing the outage before tracking the faulty signal to Simpson's cellular phone. They used the same technology cellular phone companies use to track stolen cell phones. Once they found Simpson on Wednesday, they simply asked him to turn off his cell phone. Like magic, GTE Wireless was back in service in Crystal River. ''When I pulled the plug, they had a big sigh of relief,'' Simpson said. The engineers who tracked him down got Simpson a new cell phone. The company plans to take Simpson's old, faulty phone apart in hopes of finding out exactly what it was that went wrong. A spokesman for GTE wouldn't specify how many cell-phone customers the company has, but estimated that tens of thousands may have been affected. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company

To: JMD who wrote (21401)	1/15/1999 10:21:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

Q-Brazil> commnow.com

To: JMD who wrote (21401)	1/15/1999 10:33:00 PM
From: Sawtooth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

OT Well, it looks like project completion incentive comes in more flavors than just $$$$$: Friday January 15 1:27 PM ET China Order Airline Bosses To Fly Next Jan 1 - FT LONDON (Reuters) - China, as an ultimate incentive to solve the millennium bug computer problem, has ordered its airline executives to take a flight on January 1, 2000, the Financial Times said on Friday. ''All the heads of the airlines have got to be in the air on January 1, 2000,'' the FT quoted Zhao Bo, in charge of dealing with the problem at the Chinese ministry of information industries, as saying. The ministry directive coincides with a push by Beijing to minimise the risk of chaos if computer systems and electronics fail to recognize the date change from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000. The millennium bug or Year 2000 (Y2K) problem refers to the fact that many computers and embedded chips calculate time by only using the last two digits of a year. As a result, computers may read 2000 as 1900 or simply 00. Unless rectified, the problem could cause computers to crash or miscalculate. The danger to aircraft safety from the millennium bug has reportedly made some airlines consider whether they should ground all flights late on December 31. The FT said a special problem in China is the amount of pirated software. Technicians cannot consult the manufacturers and must themselves work out how to defuse the bug. The Chinese order follows a decision by Jane Garvey, head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, to fly across America on New Year's eve to demonstrate the safety of U.S. systems.