The New Concept of Universal Service in a Digital Networked Communications Environment
I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 117-146, 2007
30 Pages Posted: 16 Apr 2008 Last revised: 3 Mar 2015
Date Written: September 1, 2006
Abstract
Digitization, sophisticated fiber-optic networks and the resultant convergence of the media, communications and information technology industries have completely transformed the communications ecosystem in the last couple of decades. New contingent business and social models were created that have been mirrored in the amended communications regimes. Yet, despite an overhaul of the communications regulation paradigm, the status of and the rules on universal service have remained surprisingly intact, both during and after the liberalization exercise. The present paper looks into this paradox and examines the sustainability of the existing concept of universal service. It suggests that there is a need for a novel concept of universal service in the digital networked communications environment, whose objectives go beyond the conventional internalizing and redistributional rationales and concentrate on communication and information networks as a public good, where not only access to infrastructure but also access to content may be essential.
Keywords: universal service, competition, regulation, new communications environment, information society, public interest, Internet
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