In fact a number of exchanges operated in this way over the recent Christmas and New Year period due to adverse weather conditions. Oftel will be looking in detail at the industry's contingency plans throughout 1999. These plans will also be reviewed by Telecommunication Operators Forum. The Forum will also be working with Action 2000 on the development of cross industry contingency provisions. So far I've described work in hand and the state of readiness for the UK end of a call.
Nevertheless work is underway to try to tackle potential problems.
UK operators are in direct contact with network operators in other countries. The ITU has established a millennium task force. The outputs of this work, including the status of individual operators in ITU member countries, can be found on the ITU web site. The ITU's work is important. But if you are an essential user of international telecommunications you should talk to your telecommunications suppliers about the millennium status of the services you use.