There are six region­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions orga­ni­za­tions that play impor­tant roles in World Radio­com­mu­ni­ca­tion Conferences:

• APT (Asia-Pacif­ic)
• ASMG (Arab states)
• ATU (Africa)
• CEPT (Europe)
• CITEL (Amer­i­c­as)
• RCC (Rus­sia and some coun­tries of the for­mer Sovi­et Union)

Deci­sions at WRCs are made by con­sen­sus. It would be impos­si­ble for the 193 ITU Mem­ber States to reach con­sen­sus on dozens of dif­fi­cult tech­ni­cal issues dur­ing a four-week con­fer­ence; much of the work of devel­op­ing con­sol­i­dat­ed pro­pos­als and posi­tions is done by the RTOs in the months and years lead­ing up to a WRC.

Each of the RTOs rec­og­nizes the IARU as rep­re­sent­ing the ama­teur and ama­teur-satel­lite ser­vices and per­mits IARU par­tic­i­pa­tion in their meetings.