Govt. And Communicators Gear Up For Y2k Rollover

Television Digest with Consumer Electronics, Dec 27, 1999

Scores of broadcasting and cable employees -- along with govt. officials -- will be working New Year's Eve and beyond monitoring their networks for any Y2K glitches that might develop. They'll also be reporting periodically on what's happening in field to govt. monitoring center in Washington. Most organizations don't expect any problems but say they have beefed up staffing because it's better to be safe than sorry.

Many companies will be monitoring their individual operations and making reports to National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications (NCCT) in Arlington, Va. NCC, joint industry- govt. organization set up 15 years ago for security and emergency preparedness purposes, is part of National Communications System. NCCT is one of several organizations that will be in communication with Information Coordinating Center (ICC), White House arm in downtown Washington that will monitor operations of all infrastructure, including broadcast, cable, Internet, telecom, electricity, financial and other services over New Year. NCCT will begin its Y2K operations Dec. 30 and will provide to ICC any information that various industries being monitored pass along on periodic basis, NCC spokesman said.

FCC Comr. Powell is scheduled to be among govt. officials on duty Dec. 31-Jan. 1 to help keep track of network performances. FCC officials will also be on hand to act as "research arm for the ICC," agency staffer said. Commission will answer ICC requests for information on telecom, broadcast and cable issues, providing technical expertise and helping ICC address news media questions about telecom networks, among other things.

NAB executives will be manning special telephone lines to receive Y2K reports from field between 10:30 p.m. Dec. 31 and 6 p.m. Jan. 1. Participating will be 13 group station owners, one radio network and one TV network (groups' identities are confidential, NAB said) who will call special number with any problems encountered. NAB officials then will report every 4 hours to FCC's Powell, who in turn will report regularly to White House's ICC. NAB Exec. Vp Henry Baumann and Senior Vp Rick Ducey will be on duty 10:30 p.m. Dec. 31-8 a.m. Jan. 1, with Gen. Counsel Jack Goodman and Dir. of Engineering Kelly Goodman in charge 8 a.m.-6 p.m. New Year's Day.

Cable industry also is part of ICC, following procedures laid out by White House organization, NCTA spokesman said. NCTA will use Road Runner's new state-of-the-art hq in Reston, Va., for its command center. Each member MSO, constituting nearly all U.S. cable systems, will report to NCTA every 4 hours, with NCTA then compiling reports and submitting them to FCC, which will forward them to ICC.

While MSOs expect to have extra workers on hand during turnover to Jan. 1, most already have 24-hour staffing, so increases aren't necessarily significant. AT&T Broadband will have 1,100 employees on duty across U.S. on New Year's Eve, spokeswoman said, slightly above average, with additional 250 on call. Each AT&T system will report regularly to AT&T Broadband hq in Denver, which will forward reports to NCTA.

Cablevision Systems will have fully staffed communications center in Woodbury, L.I., to monitor it's systems, spokeswoman said. Cablevision is also participating in White House-FCC communications process via NCTA. Spokeswoman said MSO will have workers deployed on site at each system, with additional personnel on call and special staffing maintained throughout holiday weekend.

Intelsat said it will have 140 staff members on site Dec. 31- Jan. 1. In addition to its normal operations, it will have in place customer response center, maintaining contact with users in more than 80 nations, spokeswoman said. Intelsat said it began preparing for Y2K event 2-1/2 years ago, liaising with signatories, customers, ITU, World Bank. For Intelsat's Y2K team in Washington, New Year's starts Dec. 31 at 7 a.m. in Fiji and continues for 24 hours, ending in Cook Islands. "We're going to be in real-time communications with users around the world. We'll be looking for patterns, offering solutions and keeping the information flowing," spokeswoman said.

Comsat spokesman said company has "coordinated closely" with Intelsat, Inmarsat and New Skies on Y2K preparedness. "We have completed all testing and are optimistic," spokesman said. Comsat will monitor its satellite communications network from its Southbury, Conn., control facility, sources said.

Leading ISPs are holding what they call "Silent Night" -- open conference call to report any incidents. Call, coordinated with and made available to President's Council, will begin before midnight New Zealand time and stay open for 48 hours, connecting 20-25 ISPs, equipment vendors and others. It's coordinated by Reston, Va.-based Internet Operators Group (IOG). "We don't expect problems," IOG Exec. Dir. Ira Richer said. Participants will include IOG members AT&T, Cable & Wireless, EarthLink, GTE, Quest, Sprint and others, as well as nonmembers such as AOL and MCI WorldCom. IOG also will have Web-based system ready as alternative communications path if phone system goes down. Some have suggested that Internet system will be vulnerable to multiple hacker attacks, but Secure Computing Corp. Dir.-Professional Services Mark Hardy said: "The real hacker pros will be out enjoying the Millennium parties."