This bureau is a central organ instituted in 1868 by the International Telegraphic Conference at Vienna and placed by it under the high direction of the superior authorities of the Swiss Confederation. Its object is to form a permanent bond between the telegraphic services of the different states which compose the Union, to facilitate the uniform application of the arrangements they have resolved upon, to collect and redistribute documents and information of mutual utility, to carry on such work and publications as are of interest to the service, notably to prepare work for the Conferences and publish their acts. This bureau has its seat in Bern, and its expenses are temporarily advanced by the Swiss Confederation, which is later reimbursed by the members of the Union, of whom there at present 47, covering a superficial area of 62,100,000 square kilometers, (23,970,000 square miles), and comprising within its circuits a population of 866,000,000 souls. The recent Conference at London in 1903 simplified the matters of tariff and accounting very greatly. The participants in the benefits of this treaty are now: The whole of Europe, British India, the Dutch Indies, Ceylon, the Portuguese colonies in Asia, Siam, French Cochin-China, Pers a, Japan, Asiatic Russia, and Asiatic Turkey, Egypt, Tunis, Cape Colony, Natal, East African colonies, and the British protectorate of Uganda, Portuguese East and West Africa, Madagascar, Algiers and Senegal, the Republics of Argentine, Brazil and Uruguay, the Australian Confederation, comprising South and West Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, New Zealand and New Caledonia. Besides the countries above mentioned, the following are intimately connected with the general system which encircles the globe: China, the Philippines, British America, the United States, almost all the Greater and Lesser Antilles,. Central and South America, Morocco at Tangier, the Azores, Island of Madeira, the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands, as well as those of Ascension and St. Helena, the Eastern and Western coasts of Africa, together with the islands of Seychelles, Maurice, Rodriguez, Cocos, and so forth.

It is estimated that the number of dispatches forwarded in 1901 by the countries above named amounted to more than 400,000,000.