ITU: from 17 May 1865 to a spectrum running from 9 kHz to 300 GHz

The International Telecommunication Union is a specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was founded on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, the first formal and permanent international organisation. That makes it the oldest UN agency, older than the UN itself. Doreen Bogdan-Martin is the current ITU secretary-general and the first woman to hold the post.

At first the ITU set out to help connect telegraph networks between countries, and its mandate grew as new communication technologies appeared. Early arrangements included the use of Morse code as the international telegraph alphabet, protection of the secrecy of correspondence and the right of everyone to use international telegraphy. The organisation adopted its current name in 1932 to reflect a broader responsibility for radio and telephony.

Berlin, 1906: 29 states and an annex that became the regulations

Another predecessor of today's ITU was the International Radiotelegraph Union, set up in 1906 at the first International Radiotelegraph Convention in Berlin. Representatives of 29 states took part, and the conference ended with a radiotelegraph convention. The annex to that convention became known over time as the ITU Radio Regulations.

1947: an agreement with the UN

On 15 November 1947 the ITU signed an agreement with the newly created United Nations and became a specialised agency in the UN system. The agreement formally entered into force on 1 January 1949. The ITU promotes shared global use of the radio spectrum, helps countries cooperate on the assignment of frequencies and satellite orbital positions, and works on technical standardisation.

The Radio Regulations are the ITU's basic document governing radiocommunication services and the use of radio frequencies under the law of nations. They supplement the ITU Constitution and Convention and remain consistent with the International Telecommunication Regulations. The regulations cover the part of the electromagnetic spectrum set aside for radiocommunication, from 9 kHz to 300 GHz. The approved 2012 version runs to the length of a first volume divided into chapters. It starts with terminology and technical characteristics, moves on to frequency management and radiocommunication services, then to radio stations and systems, operating terms, characteristics of emissions and equipment, frequency sharing, and technical terms relating to space.

The scale of this architecture of standards is hard to overstate. Before any telephone, radio or satellite can transmit in a given band, there has to be a common language describing bands, powers, emissions and modes of coexistence. The ITU is the institution that has maintained that language without interruption since 1865, first for wire, then for wave, and today also for orbit.