My Letter to ITU staff on the occasion of my retirement

30 November 1998

Published in the ITU NEWS No. 1/99

Lucio GOELZER bids farewell to the ITU

30 November 1998

After twenty-four years of service with the International Telecommunication Union, of which fifteen were spent at the helm of the Information Services (IS) Department, it is time to say goodbye. I have reached the United Nations mandatory retirement age.

As I look forward to new challenges, it is natural to reflect on the past.

My first project at the ITU was the introduction of electronic text processing back in 1974-1975 - six years before the invention of the personal computer (PC). We developed our own word processing software that ran on what was then the state-of-the-art Zentec machines, with their 4K of memory! [Note LG 2022: I developed the Text Processing System, single-handed, coded in assembly language of the Intel 8080 chip !] This step marked a quantum leap in the Union's productivity. Indeed, for the first time, texts which were revised heavily did not have to be retyped. Within no time, ITU's office automation got well under way.

Soon, events outside ITU demonstrated that we were already part of a computing revolution: in 1981 the PC was introduced. As we embarked on a major effort to modernize our working methods, we understood that computers alone would not increase our productivity. Fortunately, with a staff that was ready to learn new skills and adapt to new tools and more effective ways of working together, our efforts quickly bore fruit.

In 1987, we introduced local area networks (LAN) for computer connections on an ITU-wide basis (before then, LANs were only used in the Union's departments), allowing information to be shared throughout the organization. LANs, especially their Email application, paved the way to more rapid and effective collaboration among staff and access to ITU's immense text repository.

We have since upgraded LANs with the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology to support a new generation of applications (for example, real time video-conferencing) that require high bandwidth. It has been interesting to watch ITU's working culture change with the introduction of new office tools. Many matters which, in the past, would have been resolved through the exchange of formal memoranda are now dealt with more rapidly by simply exchanging E-mail messages. Today we also see more coordination among the Union's departments and more information sharing at all staff levels.

The encouragement we received from Sector Members helped us extend the use of electronic information exchange to ITU's membership. In 1989, we launched the Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) [LG 2022 note: still used today with the same name I gave], with initial support for direct dial-up and X.25 access to ITU headquarters using a simple terminal interface. As is still true today, we focused in those early days on providing the Union's membership core services such as E-mail and electronic document handling (EDH).

In early 1992, the Union was one of the first international organizations to provide a purely Internet-based service using the standard Gopher interface. In 1995, we quickly adopted the World Wide Web and have never looked back.

Today, more than 12 000 TIES subscribers and the general public depend daily upon the International Telecommunication Union online services. The ITU now maintains one of the largest and most comprehensive Web sites on the Internet, representing more than 100 000 documents and 40 gigabytes of files. In October 1998 alone, ITU delivered over 110 gigabytes of data to Internet users around the world.

I am pleased that the Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference held in October-November 1998, gave ITU a very clear mandate for a role in questions of Internet governance (see ITU News, No. 10/98, pages 17-18). The need for an impartial international organization to be involved in Internet governance was clear nearly four years ago. I recall underlining this need at the Internet Days event, which we organized in April 1995.

The IS Department has participated very actively, on ITU's behalf, in key Internet governance forums, notably the International Ad Hoc Committee (AHC) for domain name issues and the Memorandum of Understanding on Internet generic Top Level Domain names (gTLD-MoU) for which ITU is the depositary,

Leading the way again, ITU was the first among standards bodies and international organizations to introduce an online paying service for its publications in 1995.

The general public can purchase, 24 hours a day, online ITU publications with a credit card, a service which has proved to be immensely popular for those who need an ITU standard immediately.

Now it is easy to predict that the online sales of ITU publications will soon surpass those of the printed copy. It is also interesting to look at how TIES is used each day:

• the ITU Telecommunication Development Sector provides an online survey of global telecommunications regulation policy and legislation which is an invaluable resource to developing countries formulating their own policies (T-REG);

• the ITU Radiocommunication Sector provides online information on its international initiative to coordinate the development of a third generation mobile phone system (IMT-2000);

• the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector depends upon the exchange of online documents using TIES in its rapid development of new recommendations, such as the recent digital subscriber line (DSL) suite of standards that provides for high speed Internet access over normal telephone copper wires.

We continue to be pioneers in electronic commerce applications with our Electronic Bookshop and the electronic commerce for developing countries (EC-DC) project that is creating new opportunities for the developing world to reach global markets.

We have often been early adopters of new technologies (e.g. ATM), system software (e.g. Windows NT) and applications. Our choice of "SAP" for financial management in 1985 is a good example of an early adoption of a solution that will cope with changing requirements. Similarly, the decision to introduce "Documentum" as the foundation for document management applications in the ITU will have major implications in the future. SAP and Documentum, both Web enabled, will constitute central poles around which many new ITU business applications will flow.

Our choice of Windows NT in 1995 was not easy because it coincided with Microsoft's aggressive marketing and hype in favor of Windows 95: now widely recognized as a dead-end for networked environments.

Someone once said: "good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after". The computer professionals of the IS Department have spent many a late and sleepless night in their dedication to deal with the rapid change in new communication technologies and applications. They have been able to accomplish near-miracles in implementing so many new TIES applications.

I am confident that my successor, Wolfgang Wohlleber, will not only continue the policies that have made the International Telecommunication Union a leader in the effective use of networked computer systems but will also bring a fresh vision to the task.

As I move on to new opportunities, I am proud that ITU has recognized information technology and services as key components in meeting the organization's strategic goals. I am also proud that we have built an information services infrastructure, which is the envy of most other international organizations. Finally, I am very lucky that what I have helped build at ITU will allow me to stay in touch with my many friends and collaborators who have all played an important part in making TIES the success it is today.

Lucio Goelzer

lucio@goelzer.net