Fergie's Tech Blog

17 May 1865: ITU is Established

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU; French: Union internationale des télécommunications, Spanish: Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones) 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, and has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, next to the main United Nations campus.

The ITU is made up of three bureaus:

• Telecommunications Bureau (ITU-T)
• Radiocommunications Bureau (ITU-R)
• Development Bureau (ITU-D)

posted by Fergie @ 5/16/2006 10:01:00 PM