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The FINANCIAL TIMES (Oct. 13) reported that the International Telecommunications Union has now begun to address the problem of y2k and national phone systems. Some nations may be shut out of the international phone system in 2000 and beyond. (Think "banks.") The ITU plans to hold a meeting on this matter in March, 1998.
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Millennium bug: UN body reverses policy to avert telecoms threat
------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Alan Cane in London ------------------------------------------------------------------------
The International Telecommunication Union, the Geneva-based body which oversees global telecoms, has reversed its position on the so-called "millennium bug" and is now taking action to avert a threat to the world's telephone system at the turn of the century. . . .
This recognition of the "bug" as an issue requiring urgent attention goes against the agency's attitude to date. The ITU has refused to take the lead in the global debate on the bug, arguing that it was a matter for individual nations to address and resolve. . . .
The millennium bug was thought to apply only to older software but it is now known to afflict embedded processors, computers built into electronic equipment including telephone exchanges. There are fears it may be impossible to telephone some countries in the early part of the next century.
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