[Brad Lockyer]

Who remembers the Y2K ‘threat’ the world faced at the end of last century? For anyone who doesn’t, it was the threat of electronic devices worldwide shutting down simultaneously when the clocked ticked past midnight on 31 December 1999.

It was speculated that devices that relied on an internal clock would fail when the double-digit year column shifted from ‘99’ to ‘00’. The worry was the device would somehow think it had gone back in time to 1900 and would malfunction. People were concerned planes were going to fall out of the sky and life support machines would suddenly stop.

Depending on who you ask though, the Y2K threat was either a beat-up over nothing, or a true crisis only averted by legions of technicians worldwide, who implemented many last minute fixes before the big day.

Whatever it was, we may be facing a similar situation again. This time, the threat of electronic Armageddon is coming from the imminent shutdown of the 3G telecommunications network.

Much has been made of the effect that the shutdown of the 3G will have on have on customers using older model phones.

But less publicised is the fact that thousands of electronic devices across the economy, from vending machines to EFTPOS modules, are also dependent on the 3G network and will become inoperable after 31 August.

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association says affected devices could also include “smartwatches, wearables, and IoT devices such as EFTPOS terminals, industrial routers, scanners, security monitoring devices, telematics, asset tracking tools, environment monitoring tools, security cameras, medical alarms, personal emergency response solutions, and home security alarms/devices”.

Bruce Billson, small business and family enterprise ombudsman, told news.com.au many business owners may not even be aware their device is only compatible with 3G and the 31 August cutoff point will be the first warning.

“That’s too late a trigger point, because that will be business harming,” he said.

“People are probably not thinking about it at all, older EFTPOS machines and that sort of stuff. That’s a risk of lost customers and for some it could be a critical, central piece of capability.”

Do you think the 3G shutdown needs to be extended further?

[KayJay]

While I expect many small businesses may be unaware of their needs to have 4g, surely most of the companies offering services like security systems would be contacting their customers now. If you have a wireless operated system and they don’t advise you and offer an update, they will lose their monthly income and some customers will expect compensation being unsecured. (The criminals organisations will be hoping to seize an advantage immediately after August 31st.
Why aren’t the internet and phone companies, making people aware of this now or even the telecommunication industry body.
I must say I knew about it, but was only thinking of my own devices and not thinking about the communications with companies and people I use.

[Gordon Nussey]

Brad, I was one of the Thousands of Senior Systems Administrators nd Programmers who spent upwards of 2 years diagnosing Programs, Software, Operating Systems etc in the lead up to Y2K. At the time the Norm was to use 2 Digit Dates, with the leading “19” implied, which meant that on the stroke of Midnight December 31 1999, the System/Software would interpret the Date as 1900, which would cause major problems in the Finance Sector, also with System Backups, as any “NEW” Backup would be seen as being 100 years old.
Now with the turning off of the 3G network, there will be major problems in older devices that use 3G for things like OIT, Mobile Phones, Mobile Internet, with some Devices that the Owners do not even know that have the IOT capability, and may stop working because they can’t “phone home”.
I have just updated my CPAP Machine, and this one has 4G IOT connectivity, my previous one (several years old) had 3G IOT connectivity, if I still had that one, I would now have to take the Machine in to get the Sleep Data Downloaded.
So YES, in a wat we are heading for a Y2K type Major Event.

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