[tz] Cellphone tz updates often not happening in Israel

[Ephraim Silverberg]

On Mon, 23 Sep 2013, Guy Harris wrote:

>> I wonder why the cellphones' copies of the tz database
>> are not being updated?
>
> Perhaps there isn't an over-the-air automatic "update the tzdb" mechanism
> separate from the regular "update the OS" mechanism.

This seems to have been the case.

Following a warning message I sent at the end of August to Israel's
Inter-University Computation Center mailing list warning that systems
with timezone files that hadn't been updated after June (or at least
after last November) would switch over to Standard Time seven weeks
early on September 8, cellphone companies sent the following (or similar)
SMS to all their customers (translated from the Hebrew original):

     Dear Customer,

     To avoid disruptions of the clock and event calendar of your
     device between 8/9 and 27/10 due to the changeover to winter
     time, go to Definitions->Time-and-Date and disable the automatic
     update option and change the timezone to Athens, Greece.  For
     assistance, go to the URL etc.

Even though Greece will change its clocks two hours later than
Israel, I suppose it's better than seven weeks early ...
_____________________________________
Ephraim Silverberg, CSE System Group,
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Phone/Fax number:     +972-2-5494521