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INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION

                 Wireless for the 21st Century
                               
  Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Radiocommunication
                               
Remarks by Dr Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General, International
                    Telecommunication Union
                               
                    Geneva, 7 October 1995
                               
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,


This is a year of great celebration for the ITU.  It is the
130th anniversary of our founding.  It is the 50th birthday of
the United Nations.  And it is the 100th anniversary of
radiocommunication.

In some ways, these three events celebrate very different
kinds of achievements.

The founding of the International Telegraph Union, as it was
known in 1865, was above all a practical, common sense
solution to a number of problems arising from the incompatible
telegraph systems in use in different countries at the time.
In a sense, it  was the triumph of the engineers over the
politicians, in an era when nationalism was already a strong
force in the world, and very much on the rise.

The founding of the United Nations, on the other hand, was in
some ways a vindication of political possibilities, after the
terrible tragedies brought about by the extreme nationalism
and ideological divisions that had caused two world wars in
the first half of the twentieth century.  Today, everyone
talks about globalization.  But fifty years ago, it was mainly
the political visionaries who founded the UN system who saw
that mankind’s future lay with universal adherence to certain
common values.

The discovery of radiocommunication was different again.  In
part, it epitomized a certain process of scientific discovery.
Many researchers can claim a share of the credit for the
discovery of radio, each one building on the achievements of
his predecessors.  In another way, though, the what we today
celebrate as the discovery of radio represented the triumph of
a very modern, entrepreneurial spirit that saw practical value
in scientific curiosities, and moved quickly to exploit the
results of scientific invention.

Today, the ITU benefits from these three different elements of
our institutional heritage.  More than ever before, we need to
combine engineering common sense, entrepreneurial flair, and
political vision.

This is particularly the case in radiocommunications.

Today, we are focusing our celebrations on the scientific and
entrepreneurial aspect of our radiocommunication heritage.

In a little over two weeks’ time, the practical side of our
nature will hopefully come to the fore.  Participants in the
1995 World Radio Conference -- which will take place here in
Geneva from October 23 to November 17 -- will face a number of
challenges even more difficult than those that faced the ITU’s
founders 130 years ago, as they come to grips with the problem
of how to implement the latest technological innovations in
the radio world.

In just a little over one year’s time, we will discover if
there are still political visionaries among us, when the first
ever ITU World Telecommunication Policy Forum meets, again
here in Geneva, to discuss the global policy and regulatory
issues associated in particular with the introduction of
GMPCS -- Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite --
mainly the big LEOs.  The discussion will of course touch upon
wider issues, Personal Communication Systems, in particular
FPLMTS or IMT-2000 as well as the overall question of the
construction of the GII.

These policy and regulatory issues associated with the
introduction of all of this are clearly of the greatest
interest to the international telecommunications community.

As I said in my address to the TELECOM 95 opening ceremony,
even though it is an old technology -- one hundred years old
this year -- radiocommunication is still young, still
developing, still revolutionary.   It is a fitting symbol for
what the ITU and the UN are -- or should be.

I wish you all a very happy birthday!