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!