May 07, 2006, Bermuda - "Island readies for daylight savings switch",
By Stuart Roberts, The Royal Gazette Ltd.
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Bermuda will be ready to step in line with the US when it changes its daylight savings time (DST) next year.
But this could involve a slew of updates for software and gadgets built around a DST schedule unchanged since 1987.
In the House of Assembly on Friday, Government tabled a bill titled, Time Zone (Seasonal Variation) Act 2006.
“The purpose of this bill to to provide for Bermuda’s Daylight Savings Time to begin at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and to end on the first Sunday in November,” it said. “This Act will come into force on the first day of January, 2007.”
This year the clocks went forward as normal, one hour on April 2, and will fall back one hour on October 29.
However, in 2007 clocks will go forward one hour at 2 a.m. on March 11 and back again at 2 a.m. on November 4.
This follows the energy-saving measures of US President George W. Bush when he signed The Energy Policy Act of 2005 on August 8, 2005, which would start daylight savings time three weeks earlier and end it a week later.
The Secretary of Energy will report the impact of this change to Congress which still retained a right to revert DST back to the 2005 time schedule once a Department of Energy study was complete.
However, The Associated Press (AP) and USA Today reported in 2005 in an article titled, “Daylight-saving switch may cause tech woes” that when the time change occurs, people who rely on online calendars may find themselves late for appointments.
The AP said computers with Microsoft Windows operating systems would need to obtain updates, probably available on-line and some electric utilities that had advanced metres to adjust rates based on peak and nonpeak hours would be affected and studies would be required to determine if any modifications are needed.
However, a Belco spokeswoman said on Friday that electricity metres for the Bermuda Electric Light Company (Belco) would not need updating because it did not have off-peak rates.
The telecommunications industry, meanwhile, must ensure that its clocks are properly adjusted to bill customers properly, the AP said, cell phone companies could give customers an extra hour of free weekend calls and VCR and DVD recorders could start recording shows an hour late.
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