The winds of change have been blowing blown through the International Telecommunications Union. It has established a new council in recognition that the industry is now less governmentled and more business-oriented than when it was first established. Headed by Dr Karlheinz Kaske, chairman and chief executive of Siemens AG, the World Telecommunications Advisory Council, is to advise the Secretary General of the Union from both a public and private sector perspective. Also, it will look at the growth of global telecommunications networks, and make recommendations on how they are best implemented. Members of the Council will come from leading industry players – including Alcatel NV, Motorola Inc, and AT&T Co – as well as government representatives. The body was set up as a result of a rec-ommendation made by the High Level Committee, a group established by the Union’s Plenipotentiary Conference to look at how the organisation could be made more effective. Also, according to sources within the Union, there was a need to open up the ITU so that it is no longer a club of governments. Recognising that the days of state-owned monopolies are numbered, the aim is to take account of the needs of the industry without losing sight of pol-icy and regulatory conditions. The Council was to be called the Business Advisory Forum, but this was dropped because it was too specific, and it did not take any account of the Union’s regulatory work.
