World Information Society Day

How many of you over the past decade mailed a paper letter now - not official and private, friends or family? Surely, these are very few. Perhaps someone sends postcards project Postcrossing . But it does not change the fact that we have a long time, finally and irrevocably switched to electrical forms of communication. Telecommunication satellites travel through the Earth orbits, the city larded cellular antennas, the ocean floor striated armored fiber optic trunk cables. Every day we send tens and hundreds of e-mails, messages in instant messengers and SMS. Every year the world's population spends billions of man-hours, sitting in those of your internet and consuming petabytes of information. Congratulations: we live in an information society and telecommunications (or telecommunications) - our all.



Delegates to the first Conference of the International Telegraph Union

May 17 was the first time be involved in the communication exactly 150 years ago. In 1865, on this day in Paris, representatives from 20 countries signed the International Telegraph Convention. Among the participants of the Convention was, and Russia. At that time, the only form of communication in which information is transmitted via electrical signals, the telegraph had. On the same day, May 17, and was created by the International Telegraph Union.



Map of telegraph lines in Europe, 1856

Progress does not stand still, and a few decades later the name of the organization is out of date. Radio and telephone communication means have become commonplace, and in 1925 was held in London public demonstration of television. Therefore, in 1932 the organization was renamed the International Telecommunication Union .

But it took more than 100 years since the establishment of the ITU before that date was declared a holiday. This happened in 1969. At first it was called simply the World Telecommunication day (World Telecommunication Day). But progress does not stop stubborn, and in 2006 the holiday was renamed the incredible effort of will, adding references about the information society. He had to finally admit the obvious, and once a year to celebrate the transformation occurred. So congratulations to those who are involved in communication, telecom and information society. That is - congratulations to all!

Source: geektimes.ru/company/mailru/blog/250480/