MARINESHELF RECENT

MARINESHELF

Monday, October 8, 2012

I.T.U


ITU: The International Telecommunication Union

            On 24th May 1844, Samuel Morse sent his first public message over a telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore and through that simple act, ushered in the tele-communication age. Barely ten years later, telegraphy was available as a service to the general public. In those days, however, telegraph lines did not cross national borders and because each country used different system, messages          had to be transcribed, translated and handed over at frontiers, then re-transmitted over the telegraph        network of the neighbouring country. Given the slow and unwieldy nature of this system, many            countries eventually decided to establish arrangements which would facilitate interconnection of    their national networks. However, because such arrangements were managed by each country at a     national level, setting up telegraph links often required a huge number of separate agreements. To simplify matters countries began to develop bilateral or regional agreements so that by 1864 there were several regional conventions in place.

            In 1865, the first International Telegraph Convention was signed in Paris by the 20 founding members, and the International Telegraph Union (ITU) was established to facilitate subsequent amendments to this initial agreement. Today, some 135 years later, the reasons which led to the establishment of ITU still apply, and the fundamental objectives of the organization remain basically un        changed.

            Following the patenting of the telephone in 1876 and the subsequent expansion of telephony, the ITU             began, in 1885 to draw up international legislation governing telephony. With the invention in 1876         of wireless telegraphy. With the invention in 1896 of wireless telegraphy- the first type of radio        communication and the utilization of this new technique for maritime and other purposes, it was decided to form a preliminary radio conference in 1903 to study the question of international regulations for radio telegraph communication. The first Int. Radio Telegraph conference in 1960 in Berlin     signed the first Int. Radio Telegraph convention.

            Under an agreement with the newly created United Nations, it became a UN specialized agency in             1947 with its headquarter in Geneva. In 1957, the first satellite, sputnik-1 was launched and began          the space age. In 1963, the first geostationary communication satellite synom-1 was put into orbit.      Conferences made allocations and put in place regulations governing the….. by satellites of the radio frequency spectrum and associated orbital slots. In 1992, allocations were made for the first time to             serve the needs of a new kind of space service using non-geostationary satellites.

            The ITU is unique among international organization in that it was founded as the principle of cooperation between governments and the private sector. With a membership encouraging telecommunication policy-makers and regulators, network operators, equipment manufacturers, hardware and software developers, regional standards making organizations and financing institutions. ITU’s activities policies and strategic direction are determined and shaped by the industry it serves.
           
ITU publishes books and documents used by ships radio operators, including:
1.    ITU manual for use by the Maritime Mobile and Maritime Mobile- Satellite services 1992
2.    ITU list of coast stations
3.    ITU list o ship’s stations
4.    ITU list of radio determination and special services and

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