Commemorative edition:
The centenary of the international Radio Regulations

One hundred years ago, an International Radiotelegraph Convention was signed in Berlin in 1906. Its annex contained the world’s first set of rules that later came to be known as the Radio Regulations. The ITU membership has good reason to celebrate this centenary, which marks the foundation of an international treaty to govern the use of the radio-frequency spectrum and the geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits. The Radio Regulations are updated regularly in order to keep in step with the ever-expanding use of radio. This is achieved through ITU’s world radiocommunication conferences. These meetings undertake often lengthy and challenging work to produce timely and effective international rules for the establishment of advanced new wireless services and applications, while safeguarding the interests and rights of existing radiocommunication users. This commemorative edition of ITU News includes contributions from radiocommunication experts that give an overview of the past, the present, and the future in the world of wireless. ITU-based processes and regulations will continue to play a central role in fostering the rapid evolution and expansion of wireless systems on a global scale.

Editorial

• Council 2006: New times, new strategies

ITU at a glance

• Highlights from recent events

From radiotelegraphy to worldwide wireless

Valery Timofeev, Director, ITU Radiocommunication Bureau An overview of how ITU helped to form the modern world of radiocommunications, through a century’s wave of progress

Planning for all-digital radio and television broadcasting

Daniel Sauvet-Goichon, France
The second session of the Regional Radiocommunication Conference (Geneva, 15 May-16 June 2006) has the mammoth task of developing a frequency plan for an all-digital environment in over 100 countries in Europe and Africa

The transition from analogue to digital television

Alfredo Magenta, Chairman, ITU Radiocommunication Study Group 6 (Broadcasting services) Attracting individual consumers is the key to determining how fast the change is made from older television systems to the new

Radiocommunication for public protection and disaster relief

Alan R. Jamieson, New Zealand Radiocommunications are critical at times of disaster, and a resolution of the 2003 World Radiocommunication Conference will help improve their effectiveness

Controlling wireless radiation to protect health

Luiz Carlos Neves and Antonio Marini de Almeida, Brazil
In Brazil, local people’s concerns about the effects of radiation from radiocommunication towers have been addressed by a monitoring and online information system

Bringing broadband access to rural and remote areas

Gérald Chouinard, Canada The Canadian experience highlights how innovative technologies can be used to carry broadband services to remote communities

The global framework for radiocommunications

Robert W. Jones, Canada
ITU’s world radiocommunication conferences - and the Radio Regulations they produce - help the Union to ensure the equitable and efficient use of the radio-frequency spectrum

Stop press

• Geneva to host ITU TELECOM WORLD 2009

The Golden Book

Industry watch

• A news round-up

Pioneers’ page

• Karl Ferdinand Braun: Nobel Prize-winning contributor to both telegraphy and television

Official announcements/Diary