The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is an international organization established to standardize and regulate international radio and telecommunications. Its main tasks include standardization, allocation of the radio spectrum, and organizing interconnection arrangements between different countries to allow international phone calls. (In which regard it performs for telecommunications a similar function to what the UPU performs for postal services.) It is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations.

See also:

• ITU-T Telecommunications Sector
• ITU-R Radiocommunications Sector
• ITU-D Development Sector

Meetings

The ITU decides matters between states through an extensive series of working parties, study groups, regional meetings, and world meetings.

Examples:

• World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC)
• World Administrative Radio Conferences (WARC)

World Summit on the Information Society

The ITU is serving as the secretariat of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

External links

• http://www.itu.int/
• U.N. Summit to Focus on Internet (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36852-2003Dec4?language=printer) - Washington Post article about ICANN and the UN's ITU relationship]

ITU are also the initials of "International Typographical Union", a now defunct labor union that was affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations.