The Bermuda operation of Cable & Wireless has been alerting customers that as part of the company's Year 2000 compliance programme "planned maintenance and replacement of vital communications equipment is likely to affect some of our international voice and data services for brief periods.'' The advertisement, put out three weeks ago, warned that the effects were likely to have occurred on March 27, April 3 and April 10. Cable & Wireless spokesman John Instone said the average customer will not have experienced any problems. If they do it will have been for a maximum of ten minutes. Any customers affected would be switched through to satellite transmission.

The Bermuda operation was replacing the company's digital access and cross connect system at a cost of about $500,000 to $600,000. It's the most expensive part the company has had to replace for the Bermuda operation.

Mr. Instone said the equipment would have had to be replaced eventually, and rather than upgrade it the company decided to install new equipment early.

Locally the company has spent about $1 million on upgrading its systems so these won't be affected by the Year 2000 computer problem. Worldwide the company is spending 150 million (US$240 million). Of this sum 25 million (US$40 million) will be in the Caribbean region said Patricia Henry, Millennium Programme Director for Cable & Wireless' worldwide operations. Cable & Wireless began its programme in mid-1996. In the Caribbean region the programme began in March 1997 with each Island operation completing an inventory of its systems. In phase two of the programme, started in June last year, the company held a regional workshop in Barbados to determine ways in which to test systems throughout operations in the Caribbean. The programme over ran the original deadline of December 31 mostly due to delays by suppliers in delivering "millennium ready'' versions of their products, according to the company.

Phase three involves contingency planning in case the system does go haywire on January 1, 2000. That includes getting together with local operations such as the Bermuda Telephone Co. Ltd. to determine any interconnection problems.

"Nearly all Cable & Wireless systems are millennium ready today, although, inevitably, external dependencies have affected our timetable for complete millennium readiness by the end of 1998 and therefore we now have a managed push into 1999,'' Ms Henry said back in January.

I bet other companies are also facing the same delays in reaching targets. You can expect more and more companies announcing delays as the year end approaches and there is a bigger squeeze on suppliers.

*** The New York Times featured Bermuda resident James Martin in its regular feature "In my briefcase''. For Mr. Martin they changed the title to "In my ...fibreglass case'' to describe the rather unusual container the technology consultant carries around.

"For travel, he wraps his pair of the latest, slimmest, lightest IBM laptop models in an old grey sweater and plops them into an Army surplus fibreglass case,'' reporter Joseph Treaster wrote. Mr. Treaster had been in Bermuda to cover the Bermuda Insurance Symposium. "The container, as protective of his gear as it is ugly, is waterproof and looks as if it wouldn't bend under the weight of a Land Rover.'' I've seen the case and the description is apt. Along with the two laptops, needed for his high-tech lectures, there are also wires, cables, spare computer batteries, a box of CD-ROMs, a cell phone and an infrared pointer. At the time Mr. Treaster interviewed him, Mr. Martin was also carrying a half-dozen magazines, two hardcover books, an electronic fare card that he developed for transit systems that's being used in Hong Kong, spare reading glasses bought for $10 at Wal-Mart, a plan for a software start-up companies he's looking into for investors. The two hardcover books he was reading were "The Tao of Physics'' by Frijof Capra and "The Age of Spiritual Machines'' by Ray Kurzweil.

All that weight explains why Mr. Martin's arms are so lanky.

*** A new "smart'' bandage or patch is being developed by Milwaukee-based BioKey.

The bandage has built-in sensors that report on whether a wound is healing or has become infected. The sensors take readings based on chemical changes at the wound site. The first smart bandage on the market could be an eye patch for lazy eye, or amblyopia, a common children's disorder. The sensors will allow doctors to tell whether the child is using the eye patch or not. BioKey is ready to launch clinical tests and plans on having the patches available within a year.

*** Companies are proposing novel ways of going after the Internet business through the airwaves. Companies believe that satellites could provide a cheaper pipeline into the Internet, for about one-tenth the cost of a current 1.5 megabit-per-second terrestrial connection.

Teledesic plans to offer download rates 2,000 times as fast as today's modems.

Skybridge is another. Angel Technologies plans on bouncing the signals off a squadron of high-altitude planes circling above major cities. Sky Station wants to do it with blimps tethered 14 miles above.

*** Tech Tattle is about issues in technology. Contact Ahmed at 295-5881 ext. 248, or 238-3854, or techtattle ygazette.newsmedia.bm.