Daylight Savings Time

It's that time of year again when we all look at the calendar, realise the clocks are going to change, or just have changed, and wonder what chaos will ensue this time.

Our TTWG calls have since the last DST change been scheduled at 1600 UTC.

Our next call will be on 2021-03-18.

The places with current active participation in meetings are represented as follows (a subset of those listed at https://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/2021a.html) :



DST switch date

2021-03-18 1500 UTC

2021-04-01 1500 UTC

USA

2021-03-14

0800 PST, 1100 EST

0800 PDT, 1100 EDT

Europe including UK

2021-03-28

1600 CET, 1500 GMT

1700 CEST, 1600 BST

Japan

No DST

0000 JST (+1 day)

0000 JST (+1 day)


In countries that switch, if we leave the scheduled time as 1600 UTC the meeting will be 1 hour later in local time.

In the past, we have adjusted the regular scheduled time to get to the same local time where DST applies, i.e. in this case we would shift the meeting time in some period that roughly overlaps with DST to 1500 UTC. Of course the trouble is that the DST periods aren't all the same! Assuming we do the same this time, we get to choose if we make the switch for our next meeting on 18th March, or on the one after, 1st April.

As you can see from the table above, our options are:

  1.  switch to 1500 UTC for our 18th March meeting (and future meetings):
     *   US: the same local time applies;
     *   Japan: the meeting is 1 hour earlier (and continues to be);
     *   Europe: this one meeting will be 1 hour earlier and subsequent meetings are back to the usual time.
  2.  Keep the 18th March meeting at 1600 UTC and switch to 1500 UTC for our 1st April meeting (and future meetings):
     *   US: the 18th March meeting will be 1 hour later and subsequent meetings are back to the usual time.
     *   Japan: the 18th March meeting is at the usual time, and subsequent meetings are 1 hour earlier.
     *   Europe: the same local time applies on 18th March and subsequent meetings.

It seems to me likely that either option is acceptable. I don't know if the US folk would like a rare not-quite-so early call on 18th March, favouring option 2?
Atsushi has given his regrets for 18th March.

I propose:
Default choice: switch to 1500 UTC for our 18th March meeting and subsequent meetings.

If you would prefer we made a different choice (which could include a different option altogether!) please let us know by reply to this message.

The decision will be made on Tuesday when the agenda gets sent out.

Nigel