International Telecommunication Union

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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 [9]. 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 specialised 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)

[edit] Leadership

The ITU is headed by a secretary-general, who is elected on a 4-year basis by the national members at the plenipotentiary conference.

At the 17th plenipotentary conference in Antalya, Turkey, the ITU members elected Dr Hamadoun I. Toure of Mali as secretary-general of the Union. ^[1]

[edit] Standards

Monument in Berne, Switzerland. The text reads: "Union Télégraphique Internationale fondée à Paris en 1865 sur l'initiative du gouvernement français. Érigé par décision de l'Union Télégraphique prise à la conférence internationale de Lisbonne en 1908." (In English: "International Telegraph Union founded at Paris in 1865 on the initiative of the French government. [This monument] erected by a decision of the Telegraph Union made at the international conference at Lisbon in 1908.")

The international standards that are produced by the ITU are referred to as "Recommendations" (with the word ordinarily capitalized to distinguish its meaning from the ordinary sense of the word "recommendation"). Due to its longevity as an international organization and its status as a specialized agency of the United Nations, standards promulgated by the ITU carry a higher degree of formal international recognition than those of most other organizations that publish technical specifications of a similar form.

[edit] Digital Opportunity Index

The ITU has developed, under the Digital Opportunity Platform, the Digital Opportunity Index (or DOI) as a tool to measure the Information Society. DOI is a composite index based on 11 core ICT indicators. The structure of the index is sequential, which makes it more flexible and allows to use it in combination with other existing indices (such as the UNDP Human Development Index) ^[2] The DOI was endorsed by the World Summit on the Information Society ^[3] in the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (para 117) as a tool for mapping of digital opportunity worldwide.

The DOI, which was compiled for 180 economies for 2005, is at present the most extensive ICT index providing an internationally-agreed benchmark of the status of ICTs around the world at the conclusion of the Tunis Summit, and can be used to track progress made in infrastructure, opportunity and utilization of ICTs by the target year 2015. The measurement of the digital divide and the analysis based on scientifically-significant evidence make it possible to inform policy-making processes and optimize the benefits of ICTs, in particular in the developing countries.

In 2005, the Asian economies of the Republic of Korea and Japan continue to lead in digital opportunity, due to their pioneering take-up of broadband and 3G mobile services. Dramatic progress has been achieved by developing countries, however, which made the greatest progress in digital opportunity - notably India, where digital opportunity nearly doubled between 2001 and 2005, and China, which experienced remarkably strong gains in infrastructure. Different countries are following their own paths in telecommunication development, with some countries leveraging their investments in infrastructure more successfully than others.

A collaborative report, the World Information Society Report ^[4], reviews the key trends in ICT development crystallized by the DOI and frame the ICT development debate, providing an annual contribution to the WSIS implementation. Highlights from the report as well as the chapters, different statistics and maps based on the DOI are publicly available. ^[5]

The policy toolkit being developed under DOP will contribute furthering the knowledge of the digital divide and allow tailoring recommendations to address the specific challenges in digital opportunity faced by individual countries or regions based on facts about what worked and what did not in a particular context. In that sense, the insights of the different stakeholders involved are valuable in developing adapted and appropriate policy support. A DOI Users’ guide is available for all those willing to calculate the DOI themselves: regulators, development professionals, academics and larger audience.^[6]

The DOI is not at this point an ITU Recommendation (what the ITU calls its standards)^[7]. The DOI will continue to be developed as a multi-stakeholder project involving multiple partners as an integrated element of the Digital Opportunity Platform.^[8]

[edit] Members

ITU member states

The work of the ITU is conducted by its members. As part of the United Nations structure, a country can be a member, in which case it is referred to as a Member State. Companies and other such organizations can hold other classes of membership referred to as Sector Member or Associate status. Sector and Associate memberships enable direct participation by a company in the development of standards (something not allowed in some other standards bodies such as ISO, where formal ballots are processed by a single entity per country and companies participate only indirectly through national delegations). Various parts of the ITU also maintain liaison relationships with other organizations.

Members are the Vatican City and almost all of the UN members. Only Palau and Timor-Leste are not participating. Other entities not represented are the Palestinian Authority, Taiwan and the Sahrawi Republic (Western Sahara).

[edit] Meetings

The ITU decides matters between states and private organizations through an extensive series of working parties, study groups, regional meetings, and world meetings.

[edit] Examples

Stamp

• World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC)
• World administrative radio conferences (WARC)
• Regional Radiocommunications Conferences (RRC)

[edit] World Summit on the Information Society

Main article: World Summit on the Information Society

The ITU was the lead organizing agency of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)^[9], a United Nations summit aiming at bridging the digital divide and turning it into digital opportunity for all. WSIS provided a global forum on the theme of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) for development, involving for the first time all stakeholders - governments, international organizations, civil society and business. WSIS was a pledge for building a people-centered development-oriented Information Society. Other big themes of the Summit were Internet governance and Financial mechanisms for meeting the challenges of ICTs for development.

The idea of holding WSIS came from the Tunisian President Ben Ali on the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis in 1998. The process was launched late in 2002 on the initiative of Kofi Annan. The first phase of the WSIS summit took place in December 2003 in Geneva and the second and final phase took place in Tunis in November 2005.

[edit] See also

• ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector
• ITU Radiocommunication Standardization Sector
• ITU Development Sector
• ITU-T Recommendations
• ITU-R Recommendations
• UIT X.509
• Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL)
• Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Report on election of Toure: [1]
2. ^ ITU Digital Opportunity Index
3. ^ [2]
4. ^ [3]
5. ^ [4]
6. ^ [5]
7. ^ The available definition of the DOI is a methodological paper first presented at the WSIS Thematic Meeting “Building Digital Bridges” in Bussan, Korea in June 2005: [6]
8. ^ [7]
9. ^ [8]

[edit] External links

• ITU official site
• ITU history from the official site
• U.N. Summit to Focus on Internet - Washington Post article about ICANN and the United Nations' ITU relationship
• Information on national radio frequency spectrum allocations: 960 – 3 000 MHz, ITU-D, study groups SGP 2002-2006 (DOC)