Time change bug hits some Alltel phones

Customers saw handset clocks jump forward an hour

updated 10:37 a.m. ET, Mon., Nov. 5, 2007

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Most of the country moved their clocks back one hour when daylight saving time ended Sunday, but some Alltel Corp. customers saw their cellular phone clocks jump forward an hour instead.

Alltel spokesman Andrew Moreau said the glitch affected some customers in Little Rock; Panama City and Tallahassee, Fla.; Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C.; and Richmond, Va.

He said those using phones operating on the carrier's high-speed EVDO wireless network experienced the jump ahead.

Moreau said the problem rested with the switches that handle calls or send new software to the cellular phones. He said workers were still examining the problem.

"We did have a glitch this morning," Moreau said. "It's all repaired."

Cellular towers provide the time to the phones. Moreau said customers likely would see the time correct itself by placing a call or turning their phone off and back on again.

However, some did notice losing an hour on their waning weekend.

"It was obvious somebody made a big boo-boo," said Natalie Lewis of Lumberton, N.C.

Most Americans saw standard time return at 2 a.m. Sunday. Before this year, the end of daylight saving time came a week earlier. A 2005 federal law that sought to save energy by shifting more natural light to the evening hours moved the time change to the first Sunday in November, starting this year.

Moreau said the company did not have a problem earlier this year when daylight saving time started in March, rather than the first weekend in April. Then, some companies reported having trouble with calendar software and other minor computer problems.

Alltel is the nation's fifth-largest cellular phone carrier. The Little Rock-based company has 12 million customers in 35 states.

 

Quoted from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21636806/:

Time change bug hits some Alltel phones - Wireless World - MSNBC.com

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