BRIDGETOWN, Barbados-When the time came for the Dominica government minister to address Caribbean telecommunications executives at the annual conference of the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (CANTO) in May in Aruba, he dropped a quip about his country expecting to enter the new decade without being hamstrung by the millennium bug.
Some members in the audience smiled.
Earl Williams wasn’t referring to what is popularly called the Y2K problem. The bug in question is regional monopolist Cable & Wireless.
Dominica is one of five eastern Caribbean countries negotiating with the British company to speedily liberalize their telecommunications markets.
In reality, however, the difficulties facing the Caribbean and Latin America with regard to the Y2K problem are significant as well. The problems are numerous: shortage of trained specialist engineers, lack of financing to deal with the looming multibillion-dollar crisis, the need for tools to tackle Y2K, the interdependence of computerized networks, and perhaps the most stressful issue-lack of time.
In fact, some computerized operations in various places in the world are already acting up, long before the official kick-in date of one minute after midnight 1 January 2000, according to Paul Minkin, senior director of Year 2000 solutions for U.S.-based consultancy and technology developer Bellcore.
“System collapse is a real threat,” said Y2K consultant Kevin Hall of Barbados.
Several delegates who attended a workshop held earlier this year in Brazil, organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), said representatives of administrations, regulators and carriers from 21 Latin American and Caribbean nations indicated people understand the importance of this issue.
“It was noted that there is awareness of the complexity and importance of the problem at the governmental organizations and operators of the Americas region,” said Gabriel Bernal, ITU area officer in Santiago, Chile. “Most of the operators have initiated their Y2K programs and expect, in general, to complete them in the third or fourth quarters of the present year.”
In both regions, however, segments of the telecommunications industry appear underprepared to meet such targets.
One engineering source in Trinidad told Global Wireless that some of the companies are having a hard time. “Some of the smaller telcos (telephone companies) are struggling to implement Y2K because of inadequate financing,” the engineer said.
Haiti, rated the poorest nation of the Western Hemisphere, is one such country. What would amount to high costs at this late stage to upgrade computer software as the millennium clock ticks louder is considered a chief hurdle. Other countries with state-run telecommunications companies, such as Suriname and the Bahamas, could be more susceptible to the bug as well.
Despite widespread criticism of Cable & Wireless over high charges for overseas calls and private leased lines, the Caribbean stands to harvest benefits from its relationship with the multinational carrier in the new year.
In January, Cable & Wireless-which forecasts costs of between
