In many ways, the telecommunications service is unique in that it is one of the three national critical services (along with water and electricity) and is one of the three international linkages (along with air transport and shipping).
BT forecasts that by the year 2000, most African countries and parts of Asia will not receive calls due to disruptions.
We often overlook the fact that telecoms infrastructure relies significantly upon an IT component and hence software. Therefore, when a critical service is so interwoven into the fabric of life, we should know how it measures up against the dreaded Y2K bug. Yet in South Africa we have seen or read very little about how well the various operators are prepared for the millennium bug.
A global Y2K telecoms survey conducted under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in early 1998 showed that of the 230 teleco operators surveyed, some 35 telecos had no information to offer. Many of the other operators reported that they would have completed corrective action by December 1998 with testing complete by June 1999. December 1998 has come and gone, and it would be interesting if the ITU were to conduct an audit to determine the progress made. An additional disturbing observation from that report was that not all of the operators responded.
Disrupting force
BT forecasts that by the year 2000, most African countries and parts of Asia will not receive calls due to disruptions. Only 11% of operators in these areas have any form of Y2K project to ensure Y2K readiness.
Correcting the bug in teleco operators is not cheap. AT&T revised its spend upwards from $500 million to $700 million (R4.2 billion) by November 1998. AT&T spent $300 million in rewriting code during 1998 and expects to spend an additional $225 million in 1999 to ensure software compliance.
The challenge of rewriting code in telecommunications is not insignificant. For example, Frontier Communications (a US-based carrier) had 21 million lines of code to check that was spread across 16 000 programs located on 28 local and long distance mainframes and 10 AS/400 platforms.
Bell Atlantic has 100 million lines of code and 500 systems that support 38 million telephone lines that need to be checked.
Affordability
The task faced by operators is a mammoth one and the resources involved are significant. Operators that can afford to deploy such resources are not the concern but rather those countries that cannot afford the resources. It is highly unlikely that many African operators will be Y2K ready, as they do not have the skills or resources to undertake such a project.
It will be disastrous for the telecoms services to fail in fragile African economies. The question then asked is can the international community allow such events to occur? If the answer is no, then who foots the bill for ensuring Y2K compliance?
Share