Ending Leap Seconds Would Help Telecom Networks, NTIA Telling WRC-15
It's time to end leap seconds, which are added on an irregular basis so the Earth's slowing rate of rotation doesn't lead to a gap between regular and atomic clocks, NTIA is advising an ongoing gathering (see 1511050041) of national…
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telecom regulators in Geneva. NTIA, the lead U.S. agency on the issue at the World Radiocommunications Conference, said the topic will be visited later this month at WRC-15, and NTIA worked with the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission to develop the proposal to kill leap seconds in Coordinated Universal Time. "Because the world’s time keepers can’t predict when they will need to add a leap second, computer systems and telecommunications networks around the world must be adjusted manually to account for the extra second added to UTC," said an NTIA blog post Friday. "The most recent addition of the leap second at the end of June caused some Internet outages that were quickly resolved."