Telecommunications refers to the process of communicating using electromagnetic energy across great distances with voice, computer data, audio and video, multimedia, and/or facsimile images. With recent science and technological development, the ability for transmission and reception over greater and greater distances has become viable. Global telecommunications refers to the concept of telecommunications systems or concerns that span the globe. Global telecommunications is the focus of organizations and departments that deal with the deployment and use of worldwide communications networks, of local companies that provide comprehensive telecommunications services to their clients, and of organizations that make use of networks that span the world for very specific purposes. Global Telecommunications is also the name of several specific organizations, including a particular data and voice carrier with international customers and the name of a group of executive search consultants.
Global telecommunications is used to refer to telecommunications companies which have a presence around the world. In addition, a number of telecommunications companies have a department that focuses on their clients needs in terms of global communications. Whether the issue is keeping in touch with traveling colleagues, hosting webinars that include branch offices in other time zones and on other continents, or serving an international clientele, these companies aim to provide the appropriate array of global telecommunications services.
Used in a different sense, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has a Global Telecommunications System (GTS), which provides the data and communications that underpin the World Weather Watch (WWW). Since 1963, the World Weather Watch has shared weather data in order that all member countries might be able to provide better services in forecasting. As of December 2009, there were 183 member countries and six territories. The most recently joined countries have been the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste in 2009, Montenegro in 2006 and Bhutan and Kiribati in 2003. The first member countries, which joined in 1948, were Belarus, Iceland, Lebanon, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, the Russian Federation, Sweden, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and Hong Kong.