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Avoiding Babylonian Confusion in the Ether: Radio Broadcasting Regulation

Author: Benjamin Zenner

_{Would there have been a Babylonian language chaos in the airwaves without regulation? (Image Sources: https://goo.gl/MnWyax ; https://goo.gl/wjYzDk)}

In the early days of modern telecommunication technologies, chaos and misunderstanding reigned. Between 1850 and 1900, telegraphy spread like wildfire across the USA and various European countries. However, different technological standards were used in all these places, meaning that it was difficult and expensive to send and receive messages across national borders.

To facilitate global telecommunication, representatives of twenty countries met in Paris in 1865 and created the International Telegraphy Union (ITU). First and foremost, the ITU defined and enforced universal technological standards. This made sure that everybody was speaking the same technological language and was also playing by the same rules.

In 1932, the ITU merged with the International Radiotelegraph Union, with the ‘T’ now standing more generally for telecommunications. One of the key tasks was to define frequency plans to make sure stations did not broadcast on the same wavelengths. However, this strict system meant that stations without such licenses had to become ‘pirates’, that is to say they had to hijack frequencies that they were not allowed to use. In its early days Radio Luxembourg was such a pirate station.

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_{Perhaps not very flashy, but necessary: the final Convention of the 1932 Madrid conference contained very precise rules on what frequencies were to be used by whom and for what purpose. (Source: Documents de la Conférence radiotélégraphique internationale (Madrid, 1932): Tome I, p. 1339).}

_{Another seemingly simple but important detail: standardised country call codes for radiocommunication. (Source: General Radiocommunication and Additional Regulations (Madrid, 1932), p. 30).}

_{Rules obviously had to be enforced. To this end, the ITU installed a monitoring station in Brussels. (Source: Inventing Europe, Virtual Exhibition, see: http://goo.gl/eNgl4Q).}

_{Here we can see how radio broadcasting regulation affected listeners. This commercial radio set featured an annotated dial to show what signal the stations were broadcasting on. As you can see at the bottom of the image, it follows the Copenhagen Broadcasting Plan of 1948. Having a stable framework of frequency allocations was the basis on which such dials could be produced. (Source: Wikimedia Commons, see: https://goo.gl/4J9Xud).}

Literature:

Cowhey, Peter. “The international telecommunications regime: The political roots of regimes for high technology.” International Organization 44/2 1990: 169–199.

Lommers, Suzanne. Europe – On Air: Interwar Projects for Radio Broadcasting. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.

Tegge, Andreas. Die Internationale Telekommunikations-Union – Organisation und Funktion einer Weltorganisation im Wandel. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994.

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Avoiding Babylonian Confusion in the Ether: Radio Broadcasting Regulation

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