Y2K rollover on Guam "a yawn"

Navy computer systems on Guam experienced such a routine millennium rollover that service personnel described it as a non-event.

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Peterson, the Year 2000 coordinator for Commander, Naval Forces, Marianas, said in phone interview one hour after midnight (9 a.m. EST) on Guam that "all of are systems are up and running with no problems."

Asked to compare the uneventful rollover to the hyped concerns over widespread systematic computer and communications systems failure due to bad Year 2000 date code, Peterson said, "It was pretty much of a yawn."

He quickly added that the smooth rollover reflected the Navy's Year 2000 remediation efforts, which the department started in 1996. "We have done some upgrades here, but nothing major," he said.

Peterson, calling from the fully staffed command center, said the Navy operates roughly 20 computer servers on Guam running on local time, providing service to roughly 1,200 PCs hooked into island-wide fiber-optic metropolitan-area network.

On Guam, the network clicked over into the new year without a hitch, as did off-island communications, although the real test for off-island communications will come at Zulu time (7 p.m. EST)—formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time—upon which military communications systems worldwide are synchronized.