Everything is relative

The telecommunications industry, on average, is more prepared for the year 2000 than many other industries, according to a survey released last week by Cap Gemini America LLC.

The survey of 116 of the nation's largest companies and 14 government organizations looked at project progress and risk factors for each sector.

Software and financial services companies, which were ranked the highest, were the first to become aware of the problem because of the nature of their businesses, said researcher Howard Rubin, who conducted the study. Although telecom companies got a later start, they have "high technical expertise," so they still ranked near the top.

AT&T formed a Y2K task force in 1996, a company spokesman said. The task force found that the company had less date-sensitive equipment than AT&T officials first thought. Therefore, the company is ahead of its target of fixing Y2K problems, the spokesman said.

Some have charged that smaller telcos are lagging behind. Such allegations prompted Michael E. Brunner, executive vice president of the National Telephone Cooperative Association, to send a letter recently to Sen. Robert Bennett, R -Utah, chairman of the Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem. In it, he said smaller telcos are establishing target dates for correcting various systems.

"NTCA's members are concerned, however, with the reluctance of many of the larger [local exchange carriers] to share the network interconnection compliance test results," Brunner said.

The NTCA is also urging its 500 members to "test, retest and test again where Y2K fixes are concerned."