InternetNZ Potential High Tech'y Cost to Early Daylight Savings Proposal

InternetNZ is concerned that such proposals fail to take into
account the large number of computer systems which automatically handle
the existing daylight saving rules, but would need to be patched or
changed by hand in order to cope with this one-off start of daylight
saving.
Not only would such patches and changes require time to prepare and
test, but there may be many computer clocks that need to be reset at
the normal start of daylight saving, as they may move two hours ahead,
instead of one. In addition, patches may need to be removed or cleaned
up after normal daylight saving's timing is resumed, and checks would
need to be made in the following year to ensure the daylight saving
change occurred at the right time.
This would require a major undertaking by vendors of operating
systems to provide patches, and operations staff across the country in
testing and rolling out any patches and changes, and would have to be
given such high priority that it would displace existing work loads,
much like the preparation for Y2K, and made much worse by the short
time left to implement.
InternetNZ is further concerned that the power savings claimed have
not been fully examined and proven, and would strongly recommend that
the entire cost of any change to daylight saving is taken into account.
InternetNZ continues to support power saving by consumers and businesses, in particular with computers by:
- Enabling power saving options on power-hungry parts of computers, such as monitors and hard-disks; and
- Switching off computers that are not in active use.
Ends
For further information please contact:
Sue Leader, InternetNZ ph (04) 472 1600 or (021) 673-300
© 2001 The Internet Society of New Zealand
Last updated 20 September 2001