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To: pat mudge who wrote (9972)	3/3/1999 3:15:00 PM
From: zbyslaw owczarczyk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18016

U.S. local carriers see no millenium bug problems WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - A series of tests on the systems of local telephone carriers controlling 90 percent of U.S. phone lines found no disruptions were likely to occur due to year 2000 computer problems, the companies said on Wednesday. In nearly 2,000 tests performed on a simulation of the connections between the seven companies' phone networks, no significant problems occurred, the companies said. Problems arose in only six cases, but none of the problems was serious enough to prevent calls from being completed and all were rectified by upgrading software or making other changes. The tests focused on interconnections among local phone carriers. Separate tests between the local carriers and long distance and wireless companies have not been completed. Because the phone network is always in use, the companies said they were forced to do the tests on a simulated network but they promised that all equipment and software used in the test was already deployed or would be deployed before the end of the year. The seven companies said they would spend more than $3 billion collectively to test and correct ''millennium bug'' problems that occur from computer equipment that fails to recognize the year properly after Dec. 31, 1999. The companies that participated in the test were Bell Atlantic Corp. (NYSE:BEL - news), BellSouth Corp. (NYSE:BLS - news), SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC - news), US West Inc. (NYSE:USW - news), Ameritech Corp. (NYSE:AIT - news), GTE Corp. (NYSE:GTE - news), and Cincinnati Bell Inc. (NYSE:CSN - news)