National telecom company gets mixed up on time change in Uruguay

Stateowned telecommunications company Antel issued a notice to customers after the clocks on some cell phones and computers advanced 60 minutes over the weekend even though Uruguay decided in June not so switch to summer time.

“The problem was detected on Android and Windows Phone, and it could be connected to the date and hour updates on those operating systems on international time servers,” Antel said in a statement Sunday.

“To avoid inconvenience, it is recommended to change the time in configuration to GMT 3,” which coincides with the time in neighboring Argentina, the telecom company said.

Regarding personal computers, the Agesic information technology agency said an update was required for operating systems “to adopt the new response.”

“Both Microsoft and operating systems based on Unix (Linux and Mac OS, among others) have implemented measures updating time change definitions for our country,” Agesic said. “However, an update is necessary for those measures to be implemented.”

In the case of these systems’ older versions lacking software patches, Agesic recommended disabling the option to adjust the clock to summer time, or to configure the hour to Argentine time until an update is released.

The time change in Uruguay was implemented in 2006 during President Tabare Vazquez’s 20062010 first term and was canceled on June 29.