DoT leads in Y2K compliance of its network

NEW DELHI, September 3: Out of 25,784 Local Telephone Exchanges and 386

Trunk Automatic Exchanges under DOT, only 2,065 exchanges are pending to

be certified Y2K compliant. Of these 2,065 pending exchanges, 2,063 are

C-DOT exchanges, which are spread across the country covering difficult

terrain like remote islands, hilly areas, etc. This is according to the

report The Department of Telecommunications (DOT) has presented on the Y2K

status of telecom sector in India to the Year 2000 Task Force

International Telecom Union (ITU). The ITU Task Force was led by Ron Balls

and the DoT was represented by Advisor (HRD), NR Mokhariwale.

Majority of these C-DOT exchanges will also be made Y2K compliant by

September 1999 and the remaining by October 1999. All Transmission

systems, Intelligent Network (IN) systems and 457 Satellite Earth

Stations/Terminals are also Y2K compliant. However, there are 38 such

Satellite VSAT (HVNET) terminals which are used by a few closed user

groups (CUGs) and are Y2K non-compliant. The same will be made Y2K

compliant by November 1999.

List of other such Y2K compliant equipment/services includes Computer

Application Systems, computerized Fault Repair Service and Directory

Enquiry systems. While the Packet Switched Public Data Network (INET)

serving 106 nodes/cities would be made Y2K compliant by October, 1999, six

of 11 VSNL International Gateway switches should also fall under this

category by the same date.

While among the PSUs of DoT, the equipment and services provided by

MTNL, ITI, HTL and TCIL have already attained the compliance status, of

the three private basic operators, two are under implementation. Similarly

out of 22 cellular operators, only three are Y2K compliant, remaining are

under implementation. Almost same is the case with radio paging service

providers, where out of 15, only five have reported Y2K compliant. Most of

the private operators intend to reach the complaint status by November

1999.

DoT is pursuing these private operators directly and through their

service associations to make their services Y2K compliant as early as

possible, for which it has adopted three stage certification procedure.

First, certification by vendor himself; second by Telecom Engineering

Center (TEC), based on ITU procedure; and third by the implementing

agency.