Inventing the future in international telecommunications.

• Author: Utsumi, Yoshio
• Position: Mission Statement

More than a century has passed since the work of Guglielmo Marconi and Alexander Graham Bell created the era of modern communications. While their inventions spurred profound changes to the scientific, social and economic development of the past century, their inspiration touches at both the heart of humanity and the mission of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Marconi's vision was not just to overcome the hurdle of sending electrical pulses across the Atlantic. He said he hoped that the telegram would make the world a smaller and more peaceful place. Graham Bell's goal was even more personal--he wanted to overcome a human handicap: the deafness of his wife and that of his students.

As I enter my second term as Secretary-General of ITU--the world's oldest intergovernmental organization--I'm reluctant to predict what revolutionary change telecommunications will bring to this century. However, I am certain of one thing: information and communication technology (ICT) is at the core of the current evolution of the global information society.

Information has the power to dispel ignorance and empower those who are oppressed. It has the power to bind the global community and spread the common ideals of peace and tolerance, growth and development. While the basic needs of humankind have long been food, clothing and shelter, the time has come to add "information" to that list.

A concerted global effort is needed to eliminate the gap between rich and poor when it comes to access to information. Unfortunately, we still have many hurdles to overcome. The euphoria of the dot.com boom carried the world into uncharted waters, and at times we lost sight of the horizon. Too much eagerness to "jump on the electronic bandwagon" resulted in a mismatch between supply and demand, which led to telecommunication overcapacity in many areas of the developed world. In 2000 alone, the industry invested more than $200 billion worldwide. But the financial and social dividends have been far from optimal, because we were super-serving the rich few, and failing to provide basic services to the many.

Despite the abundance of telecommunication capacity, there is not even a basic telephone connection in many villages of the developing world, where demand continues to outstrip supply. The problem is clearly not one of shortage of resources but of distribution and the lack of a global policy perspective.

In the new information society, where information is the...