MTC beats Y2K bug

Micronesian Telecommunications Corp. general manager David Rogers yesterday expressed relief that the rollover to the year 2000 had passed without glitch at any of the company’s time-sensitive computer systems.

In a recent interview he described the important role that employees at MTC played on New Year’s Eve as the clock struck 12 midnight. “All eyes were on MTC since it was the first company within the GTE Corporate family to witness the rollover of the new millennium.”

Team members included Stephen Agyei Mensah, Jimmy Gima, Sandy Barry, Jim Calderwood and Pete Pangilinan. In addition to the core group that were on-site during New Year’s Eve, MTC also had about twenty staff and technical support who were on-call in case of emergency.

The on-call team included Mhel Espeno and Sharon Abragan for billing systems support. Larry Knecht and Allen Palacios managed support of Buildings, Cars and Utilities. Jorge Soledad and Franco Mendoza handled prepaid calling card systems. James Calderwood and Frank Dela Cruz manned the Central Offices and Switches. Mike
Ngirbabul and Noel Reyes handled Customer Premise Equipment. Franco Mendoza and Richie Dumlao provided technical support for internet systems and internal LAN/WAN equipment.

Libby Carpenter and her crew of operators were standing by to handle 611 calls and operator assistance. Joe Reyes and Joe Guerrero provided backup support for private lines and circuits, and Kerry Deets and Tony Mosley were on-call to provide public relations support. “I am very proud of the team, they did a fantastic job when the pressure was really on,” says Mr. Rogers.

When asked how he felt about the rollover, team leader Stephen Mensah said there was a lot of excitement as well as anxiety inside the control room, but everything worked out fine.

“We witnessed steady traffic on the telephone network right around midnight and were pleased to see that the call traffic never reached a point where it became too heavy of a load for our systems. I think we have to thank the public for that,” he said.

The next milestone will be February 29th, since it is a leap year. “[But] I don’t anticipate anything of significance given how easily the transition has been made to January 1st, 2000.