Centenary of the International Telecommunications Union
Centenary of the International Telecommunications Union
From a very early age, men endeavored to find ways of transmitting important news through space.
As long as electrical phenomena remained ignored, they were reduced to using rudimentary and limited means: messengers, sound signals (tom-tom) or optical signals (fire, flags, overhead telegraph).
The 19th century, characterized by fundamental discoveries in electricity (battery and electromagnet), led to the invention, in 1837, of the electric telegraph. In 100 years, this successively gave rise to the telephone (invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell), radiotelegraphy, radiophony, radar, television and the laser, thus providing man with rapid and long-distance methods of communication.
All these discoveries constitute current telecommunications, a true nervous system of the modern world, making it possible to expand the domain of exchange of ideas, information, knowledge and to cross artificial borders and natural obstacles.
Very quickly, it appeared that the electric telegraph, going beyond the narrow framework of local or national limits, required the establishment of international agreements to resolve the problems of operation and pricing between corresponding countries.
Isolated and dispersed, the arrangements quickly became multilateral, leading, in March 1865, to the opening, in Paris, of a telegraph conference at the end of which, on May 17, 1865, a single convention was signed, establishing the creation of the International Telegraph Union and the development of “Regulations” for the telegraph service.
The very rapid evolution of technology and means of communication and transmission led to the merger into a single organization of the two Unions then existing: the International Telegraph Union, founded in Paris on May 17, 1865, and the International Radioelectric Union, gathered in Berlin in 1906, which became the International Telecommunications Union, as we know it and whose centenary we commemorate in this year 1965.
From a very early age, men endeavored to find ways of transmitting important news through space.
As long as electrical phenomena remained ignored, they were reduced to using rudimentary and limited means: messengers, sound signals (tom-tom) or optical signals (fire, flags, overhead telegraph).
The 19th century, characterized by fundamental discoveries in electricity (battery and electromagnet), led to the invention, in 1837, of the electric telegraph. In 100 years, this successively gave rise to the telephone (invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell), radiotelegraphy, radiophony, radar, television and the laser, thus providing man with rapid and long-distance methods of communication.
All these discoveries constitute current telecommunications, a true nervous system of the modern world, making it possible to expand the domain of exchange of ideas, information, knowledge and to cross artificial borders and natural obstacles.
Very quickly, it appeared that the electric telegraph, going beyond the narrow framework of local or national limits, required the establishment of international agreements to resolve the problems of operation and pricing between corresponding countries.
Isolated and dispersed, the arrangements quickly became multilateral, leading, in March 1865, to the opening, in Paris, of a telegraph conference at the end of which, on May 17, 1865, a single convention was signed, establishing the creation of the International Telegraph Union and the development of “Regulations” for the telegraph service.
The very rapid evolution of technology and means of communication and transmission led to the merger into a single organization of the two Unions then existing: the International Telegraph Union, founded in Paris on May 17, 1865, and the International Radioelectric Union, gathered in Berlin in 1906, which became the International Telecommunications Union, as we know it and whose centenary we commemorate in this year 1965.