abbr.
International Telecommunications Union
| Dictionary: ITU |
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| Marketing Dictionary: ITU (International Telecommunications Union) |
Organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, that sets international standards for communication over phone lines. It was previously known as the ccitt. The ITU is an agency of the United Nations. ITU has set a standard modem speed of 56K for global communications.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: International Telecommunication Union |
| Abbreviations: ITU |
| Meaning | Category |
| Institute Of Telephony Union | Community->Unions |
| Intensive Therapy Unit | Medical->Oncology |
| Interdisciplinary Thematic Unit | Academic & Science->Universities |
| International Communication Union | Computing->General |
| International Technological University | Academic & Science->Universities |
| International Telecommunication Union | Academic & Science->Ocean Science Governmental->United Nations Governmental->US Government Computing->Drivers |
| International Telecommunications Union | Community->Media Governmental->Military Computing->Telecom Computing->Drivers |
| Interrogator Translator Unit | Governmental->Military |
| Istanbul Technical University | Academic & Science->Universities |
| Istanbul Teknik Universitesi | Academic & Science->Universities |
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| Wikipedia: International Telecommunication Union |
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Flag of the ITU |
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| Org type | UN agency | ||||
| Acronyms | ITU UIT |
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| Head | |||||
| Status | Active | ||||
| Established | 17 May 1865 | ||||
| Headquarters | |||||
| Website | http://www.itu.int/ | ||||
| Portal | |||||
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The International Telecommunication Union is the second-oldest international organization still in existence (the oldest being the Rhine Commission), established to standardize and regulate international radio and telecommunications. It was founded as the International Telegraph Union in Paris on 17 May 1865. 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.
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The ITU is made up of three sectors:
A permanent General Secretariat, headed by the Secretary General, manages the day-to-day work of the Union and its sectors.
The ITU is headed by a Secretary-General, who is elected to a four-year term by the member states at the plenipotentiary conference.
At the 17th Plenipotentiary Conference (2006) in Antalya, Turkey, the ITU's Member States elected Dr. Hamadoun Touré of Mali as Secretary-General of the Union.[1]
| Directors of ITU | |||
| Name | Beginning of Term | End of Term | Country |
| Louis Curchod | 1 January 1869 | 24 May 1872 | |
| Karl Lendi | 24 May 1872 | 12 January 1873 | |
| Louis Curchod | 23 February 1873 | 18 October 1889 | |
| August Frey | 25 February 1890 | 28 June 1890 | |
| Timotheus Rothen | 25 November 1890 | 11 February 1897 | |
| Emil Frey | 11 March 1897 | 1 August 1921 | |
| Henri Étienne | 2 August 1921 | 16 December 1927 | |
| Joseph Räder | 1 February 1928 | 30 October 1934 | |
| Franz von Ernst | 1 January 1935 | 1 January 1949 | |
| Secretaries general | |||
| Léon Mulatier | 1 January 1950 | 1 January 1953 | |
| Marco Aurelio Andrada | 1 January 1954 | 18 June 1958 | |
| Gerald C. Cross | 1 January 1964 | 29 October 1965 | |
| Manohar Balaji Sarwate | 30 October 1965 | 19 February 1967 | |
| Mohamed Ezzedine Mili | 20 October 1967 | 31 December 1982 | |
| Richard E. Butler | 1 January 1983 | 31 October 1989 | |
| Pekka Tarjanne | 1 November 1989 | 31 January 1999 | |
| Yoshio Utsumi | 1 February 1999 | 31 December 2006 | |
| Hamadoun Touré | 1 January 2007 | present | |
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). 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.
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. As of September 2007 there were 191 Member States and more than 700 Sector Members and Associates. [2]
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 almost all of the UN members plus the Vatican City State. Only Palau and East Timor are not participating at this time. Other entities not represented are the Palestinian Authority and Taiwan, although the Palestinian Authority is granted non-voting observer status [3].
The ITU decides matters between states and private organizations through an extensive series of working parties, study groups, regional meetings, and world meetings.
The ITU was the lead organizing agency of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)[4], 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.
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