Restructuring the international telecommunication regulations

Win, Lose and Draw: Outcomes from the 2019 World Radio Conference

“…It also promulgates technical standards and devises strategies for promoting information and communications technologies in developing nations. World Radio Conferences, convened by the ITU in four-year cycles, seek to reach consensus on spectrum allocations and reallocations (Drake, 1988), (Gregg, 1982), (Codding & Rutkowski, 1982).…”

The New International Telecommunication Regulations and the Internet

“…The Morris worm, or Internet worm of 2 November 1988, was one of the first computer worms distributed via the Internet and was certainly the first worm to gain significant mainstream media attention. 399-402;and Drake, William J., 1988. Although the worm itself was not explicitly mentioned in the ITRs, the "avoidance of technical harm" provision of Article 9 is generally considered to have been inspired by a desire to take steps that would prevent a reoccurrence of problems of this type.…”

“…113 According to the background memorandum, [The 1988 ITRs] "specifically addressed voice telephony, not data processing capabilities, and resulted in large payments from U.S. communications companies to telephone companies in foreign, mostly developing, countries." But the ITU already "covered" some aspects of the Internet, see for example Plenipotentiary Resolutions 101 and 102 (which even refer to the domain name system), not to mention all the ITU-T Recommendations that enable the Internet (xDSL, fiber optic, cable modem, compression, X.509 certificates, etc.).…”