Warning from the front line: it's not over yet

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By LINDA MORRIS

The risk of Y2K-related breakdowns had eased but it would be days, if not weeks, before Australia could be declared Y2K secure, Australian industry and government said yesterday.

Their warning against complacency came after business and government worldwide spent more than $600 billion to immunise information and technology systems against crippling failures, which have so far not materialised.

Australian private and government sectors alone spent $12 billion to buffer any Y2K impacts, the bulk of which was spent by the banking and telecommunications sectors.

Of the $2 billion spent by the Federal and State governments, the biggest spenders were the Federal Government ($530 million) and the NSW Government ($450 million).

Australia passed its first Y2K test at midnight on Friday with power suppliers, major banks, telecommunications carriers and the aviation industry reporting all systems operating normally.

No Y2K problems were reported for key service delivery areas such as transport, health and water, with the exception of Tasmania and South Australia, which had minor problems with portable ticket validators on bus systems.

Despite fears of crippling disruptions in Third World countries and among Australia's major trading partners such as Indonesia, the small West African nation of Gambia emerged as the only country seriously affected by power failures which could be partly blamed on the millennium computer bug.

In Australia, the National Co-ordination Centre set up to field emergency calls officially scaled back its operations but the Federal Government cautioned that the bug could still strike.

A second test will come today as some businesses resume operations and organisations use the holiday weekend to test their systems to confirm they are operating through the date rollover.

Yesterday, National Australia Bank sent in staff to 1,000 branches to test if building alarms, computers and software systems were operational ahead of their Tuesday morning opening.

Visiting fellow with the Australian National University and an Internet consultant, Mr Tom Worthington, said it was a point of debate to say industry had overspent to correct Y2K problems: "I wouldn't say we were out of the woods yet. There are still problems of nuisance value to tackle come Tuesday."

Telstra spent $400 million reprogramming and rewriting software and educating its business customers on any potential Y2K glitches. Apart from congestion at midnight on New Year's Eve, it had not detected any problems in its national network or with any of its international carriers.

Despite the smooth transition to the new century, spokesman Mr Steve Wright said the telecommunications carrier would have been foolhardy not to have gone to the lengths it did to beat off the millennium bug because of the potential for disruption.

"It's a bit shallow to say it was all a wasted effort," he said. "If there had been the potential for a 3 to 5 per cent error rate as the Federal Government predicted we could have easily spent more rectifying the faults."

Dell, which supplies computer hardware to a cross-section of major banks, Federal Government agencies, insurers and manufacturers, said calls to its national call centre were "almost zero". Accounting firm Arthur Andersen also reported no calls for advice from its client network.

The Parliamentary Secretary for communications, Senator Ian Campbell, said the $12 billion price tag was large but the money well spent. "I think we will be talking about Y2K for some months to come," he said. "It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, logistic exercises in world history, and it's been money well spent. I'd much rather us be over-prepared than not prepared at all and there being the potential for loss of life."

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@AOL.COM), January 02, 2000

Answers

What a buffoon! Y2k was nothing and he still doesn't get it! The y2k wackos are just too funny!

-- weare (laughing@you.com), January 02, 2000.

We are,

Nice personal attack. Do you have an argument, though?

-- eve (123@4567.com), January 02, 2000.