World Telecommunication Day

Paul McCord writes "The International Telecommunication Union is asking everyone to join in for World Telecommunication Day 2003, Saturday, May 17. The ITU suggests that this is 'an excellent opportunity to launch public campaigns and advocacy activities in favour of greater access to [information and communication technology] and how the work of ITU helps all of the world's people to communicate.' It may be a bit late to join in on some of the official activities, but awareness if nothing else will help to serve the day's purpose. See the WTD2003 site or this Google News query for information, links."

Comments

Day taken!

[gspr]

Sorry folks, May 17th is taken! It's Norway's national day, and we don't wanna share it with some telecom day! Grr! :)

Better idea

[Timesprout]

How about all the telcos let us make free calls anywhere all day to celebrate it.

ICANN

[pchown]

There are those who would like to see the ITU take over from ICANN. I'm not sure that the ITU is the perfect organisation to do it. It is bureaucratic and is a group of telcos rather than including wider Internet interests. However, I do agree that it would be a lot better than what we have at the moment.

Perhaps World Telecommunications Day would be a good opportunity for the ITU to put this agenda forward.

Wellllll...

[Faust7]

Telecom as a whole isn't dead. Long-distance is what's dead, thanks in large part to the Internet. AT&T and MCI realized this, and with the help of some recent laws began poking into the local service market, reselling service over the local companies' lines. Local-LD Combo packages like AT&T's One Rate and MCI's Neighborhood are a real threat to ILECs, and now both of the big'uns are also branching into DSL territory (I believe MCI literally just started offering DSL in some states), ensuring their corporate relevance.