World Radiocommunication Conferences

World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRCs), called World Administrative Radio Conferences (WARCs) until 1993, are important to most countries. They are convened regularly by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations, to update the regulations governing the use of the radio spectrum according to changes in technology and to allow the introduction of new services. They accomplish this by reallocating spectrum to the various radio services, and by updating other articles of the regulations. WRCs are large events. The last one, WRC-00, was attended by more than 2000 delegates, over 80 companies and some 300 observers, from more than 150 countries. An excellent account of a WRC as experienced by an astronomer can be found at: