FCC Commissioner Michael
O'Rielly has proposed to Congress that the U.S. consider developing an
alternative to the International Telecommunica- tion Union, or ITU, for future
matters of international spectrum management.
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| FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly (FCC photo) |
O'Rielly told the U.S. Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that the ITU and its
quadrennial World Radiocommunication Conferences, or WRCs, may actually be
stifling progress in promoting advanced technology. He noted that in the ITU,
as an agency of the United Nations, each country has just one vote and that at
the last WRC, it seemed that certain countries came with the goal of opposing
whatever the U.S.
wanted. He proposed creating a separate body of the world's telecommunication
leaders - similar to the G7, or Group of Seven major economies - to effectively
bypass the ITU in the future.
