The History And Origin Of ITU

 The ITU or International Telecommunication Union was formed to connect telegraphically networks between countries, but its mandate kept on broadening with the ever-improving communication technologies over time. Initially, the ITU stood for International Telegraph Union, and it wasn’t until 1934 that it got its current name, denoting the union’s responsibilities over radio and telephone.

Origin of ITU

Since the early years of society, sending complex over long distances was via horseback courier. In the late 18^th century, a visual network of semaphore stations was inaugurated across France by Claude Chappe. The electrical revolution followed this, and after a lot of experiments with sending electrical signals through wires, finally, in 1839, the world’s first commercial telegraph service was opened in London.

After connecting major cities through telegraph in 1850, a submarine telegraph wire coated in protective gutta-percha was laid between France and Britain. This cross-border connection cause was that the messages had to be stopped and translated into the following jurisdiction.

A conference was held in Paris (International Telegraph Conference) to optimize the services and overcome the barriers that representatives of 20 different states attended. On 17^th May 1865, the International Telegraph Convention was signed by the twenty founding members establishing the ITU. At the time, the responsibilities of this union were to supervise the amendments of the agreement set as a standard by the convention.

It wasn’t until a decade later, in 1876, that the telephone was patented, leaping forward in the communications domain. The conference in 1885 Berlin was where the ITU started drawing up legislation on telephony. At the time, telephone calls were limited to 10 minutes and 5 minutes being a unit of charge.

This new technology was a huge deal because it meant now communicating over a long distance was possible, whether through speech or as a Morse code. But what the telephone lacked was that if two places aren’t connected via wire, how could you communicate with them? A typical example of this was someone on a ship. David Edward Hughes demonstrated to the royal society in London in 1880 what later will be recognized as wireless communication. This idea was taken as basis by various inventors such as Nikola Tesla, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Guglielmo Marconi, and Alexander Stepanvich Popov. In the 1890s, the radio was invented, known as “wireless telegraphy” at the time. By 1899 Marconi sent his first wireless signal across the English Channel.

ITU In The Modern  World

The responsibilities of ITU nowadays are encouraging the use of the global radio spectrum, assisting in developing and coordinating the worldwide technical standards, and facilitating international cooperation in satellite orbits. ITU’s jurisdiction also covers broadband internet aeronautical and maritime navigation, satellite-based meteorology, wireless technologies, TV broadcasting, radio astronomy, and next-generation networks.

ITU headquarters are based in Geneva, Switzerland, and had over 193 countries and 900 businesses, international organizations, and academic institutions.

The Counsel Of ITU Is As Follows 

Reference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union)