Millennium Bug May Hit Inet Network

Senior officials of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Telecommunications Engineering Centre (TEC), its research wing, met here yesterday to discuss the fallout of the year 2000 or Y2K problem on its data communications network INET. This is a packet switched network and links 85 cities in the country on a high speed backbone based on the X.25 switching technology.

The meeting was called after Alcatel, which has supplied all the switches and other equipment pointed out to the TEC that the Y2K problem might have certain adverse effects on INET. This will especially occur in the billing and alarm systems which are located at the network management centre (NMC).

 

The NMC located in Bangalore is the heart of the INET, managing and monitoring the flow of traffic. It also takes corrective action if faults occur in the network. The NMC is a complex piece of software that runs on powerful computers or workstations. Alcatel has pointed out to the TEC that the likelihood of malfunctioning of the NMCs billing and alarm systems is high.

This will happen when the computers at the NMC refuse to recognise the year 2000 because of the way in which the date fields have been defined. Between December 1999 and January 2000, all records pertaining to subscribers calls, when made and for what duration will go haywire, because the computers will read 2000 as 1900.

The Y2K problem is an especially complex problem that faces computer programs all over the world, where dates are written as two digit numbers. So 1999 is written as 99, the 19 is understood by the computer.

However, for 2000, the computer will read 00 as 1900 and that will lead to miscalculations and malfunctions.

TEC has invested nearly Rs 60 crore in its INET switches. The Y2K is likely to cause malfunctions in all its 85 centres in the country.

DoT officials have asked Alcatel to suggest a remedy for this problem and will meet in the third week of August to finalise a course of action.