Encyclopedia > International Telecommunications Union
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is an international organization established to standardize and regulate international radio and telecommunications. It was founded as the International Telegraph Union in Paris in May 17, 1865, and is today the world's oldest international organization. Its main tasks include standardization, allocation of the radio spectrum, and organizing interconnection arrangements between different countries to allow international phone calls. (In which regard it performs for telecommunications a similar function to what the UPU performs for postal services.) It is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations.
See also:
ITU-T Telecommunications Sector
ITU-R Radiocommunications Sector
ITU-D Development Sector
Meetings
The ITU decides matters between states through an extensive series of working parties, study groups, regional meetings, and world meetings.
ITU history from the official site (http://www.itu.int/aboutitu/overview/history.html)
U.N. Summit to Focus on Internet (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36852-2003Dec4?language=printer) - Washington Post article about ICANN and the United Nations' ITU relationship
Because it uses an international natural resource--the radio spectrum--Amateur Radio must organize nationally and internationally for better mutual use of the radio spectrum among radio amateurs throughout the world, to develop Amateur Radio worldwide, and to successfully interact with the agencies responsible for regulating and allocating radio frequencies.
At the international level, national societies throughout the world work together for the international good of Amateur Radio under the auspices of a representative democracy, the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU).
The IARU Constitution, last amended in 1989, organizes the Union into three Regional Organizations that correspond to the three radio regions of the InternationalTelecommunicationUnion (ITU).
The union functions under the InternationalTelecommunication Convention, which was adopted in 1947 and revised in 1967.
The goal of the organization is to extend and improve all forms of internationaltelecommunication by allotting radio frequencies, by encouraging the establishment of low rates, and by perfecting communications in rescue operations.
The ITU is governed by the plenipotentiary conference at which all members are represented; it normally meets once every four or five years.
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