The ITU Internet Broadcasting Service (IBS) is a service of the Conference Technology Division of the ITU Information Services Department.

The objective of IBS is to:

• facilitate remote participation in ITU meetings for Member States and Sector Members;
  
• provide delegations with greater flexibility in following ITU meetings;
  
• enable ITU staff to listen to proceedings from their offices;
  
• provide on-demand access to the ITU audio and video archives, including multimedia training materials.

How the IBS works

The IBS uses Real Networks client/server software to distribute audio and video over the ITU Intranet and the public Internet. The client software distinguishes between audio and video streams and plays each appropriately. The server software streams the media files so the user does not have to wait for files to download and can access video or audio at any point.

Special encoding software digitizes and compresses the video or audio signal. This makes it feasible to access video and audio over the Internet using a PC equipped with a sound card and an Internet connection.