The ITU miracle: a century of international cooperation
By Charles Miller

Several weeks ago I mentioned the problems an Atención reader was having with wireless internet and cordless phones in her home. Unfortunately, a lot of early cordless phones interfere with internet Wi-Fi and kill the signal to the computer. I said to blame this on the ITU.

The more I think about what I wrote, the more I came to realize that the International Telecommunication Union deserves a lot more credit than blame for the work they have done.

The Union Internationale des Télécommunications was founded in Paris on May 17, 1865, on the initiative of the French government. It is truly amazing that years before the invention of the telephone, decades before the development of broadcast radio, a century before the internet, some forward-thinking individuals were already concerned with standardizing international electronic telecommunications.

Of course, we can imagine the biggest concern in 1865 was that Morse code tapped out in Paris could be received at the telegraph office in Berlin. In order for that to happen, there had to be a degree of standardization in equipment, voltages, etc., across international borders.

The ITU is believed by many to be the oldest international organization in existence and its history actually predates the International Postal Union. People were sending letters before the invention of the telegraph, but in the nineteenth century, each country negotiated a treaty with others to handle international mail. The telegraph operators realized this chaos would never work in the electronic world.

Today the ITU is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. They control the worldwide allocation of the radio spectrum and facilitate interconnection arrangements between different countries.

In truth, though, the ITU does not “control” anything at all. The standards published by the ITU are referred to as “Recommendations” but always with a capital R. The organization is entirely dependent on voluntary cooperation.

The standards promulgated by the ITU carry a higher degree of international recognition than any others. Many other nations and organizations publish technical specifications in a similar form, but these tend to follow ITU Recommendations. The Mexican Comisión Federal de Telecomunicaciones (COFETEL) and US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are good examples of agencies that control internal licensing while respecting international agreements.

So far, voluntary cooperation has worked well enough. Politicians can never agree, but every technician in the world knows that if their internet connection is built to a different standard, it is not going to interconnect.

The only governments not participating are East Timor, Palau, the Sahrawi Republic, and the Palestinian Authority. Taiwan does not “officially” recognize the ITU, but judging from how much electronic merchandise is manufactured there, methinks somebody in Taipei is reading and listening to those ITU Recommendations.

Through the guidance of the International Telecommunications Union, we have avoided chaos. Unfortunately, though, there are only a limited number of radio frequencies available and the older 2.4 gigahertz cordless phones can interfere with wireless internet.

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ7@SMAguru.com.