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This study aims to, in the light of the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) objective to provide “broadband for all”, investigate how the DAE can make use of universal service as a regulatory instrument created specifically to ensure a minimum of available and affordable electronic communications services within a competitive market.

The paper uses systematic and comparative legal analyses of the European Union (EU)’s universal service rules and contrasts them with Information Society policy measures.

There are strong commonalities between the DAE and universal service on the level of objectives. However, due to heavy reliance on the measures stimulating supply-side, there are discrepancies in the mechanisms of their achievement. At the same time, an effective use of universal service instrument by the DAE is not reasonable. In its current form, universal service does not correspond to the substantive requirements of the Information Society policy and needs to be reformed. The paper calls for additional empirical and theoretical research on the role and form of universal service in the Information Society and outlines main issues for further research.

The paper uses the perspective of the EU Information Society policy to undertake a legal analysis of the current universal service regulation. Against this backdrop, it points out obsolescence of individual elements of the scope and logical deficiencies of the review mechanism.

The current approach to universal service involving the provision of specific services (such as fixed voice, public payphones, ability to make emergency calls, etc.) needs re‐thinking in a convergent, NGN environment. This paper seeks to be part of that re‐thinking.

Questions addressed include: Should we move to a focus on universal access to communications infrastructure, allowing consumers to dictate preferred services? Since access to the full range of NGN services, including VoIP, requires broadband connection, should the scope of USOs be “upgraded” to include broadband?

A shift towards universal network access seems sensible provided that a number of conditions exist. One is that traditional services defined under universal service obligations (USOs), remain available. In particular, a shift to VoIP raises questions about whether present features of universal service (quality, ability to make emergency calls, etc) can be sustained. Another condition is widespread access to broadband. Another condition is that consumers are empowered to exercise the increased choice of services that will be available in an NGN environment. Such consumer empowerment requires that market power, information asymmetry, barriers to “switching”, as well as “systematic bias” in consumer decisions be effectively addressed.

Stimulates the policy reconsideration that is needed in regard to universal service in an NGN environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine women homeworkers' access to healthcare services in Thailand. Specifically, it focuses on how the state's universal healthcare service, introduced in the year 2002, has responded/not responded to the needs of poor women homeworkers in Bangkok.

Data collection was done through a structured questionnaire with 415 women homeworkers from 16 districts in Bangkok, Thailand, ten in‐depth interviews and 13 group discussions.

It was found that less than half of the women homeworker respondents accessed the universal healthcare scheme. The obstacles for access include both financial (transportation cost, loss of wage) and time. Also, homeworkers need support from the community/household to access these services. Universal health services itself is not enough to ensure access to healthcare service, especially among poor and minimally educated homeworkers with small children.

The research showed the need to have multiple approaches (state‐provided services and community organizing, as well as awareness among men about their role in care work), in order to ensure universal healthcare coverage.

Universal healthcare services are considered the best way to extend healthcare services to workers in the informal economy. This paper argues that total dependence on state‐provided services does not ensure universal healthcare coverage. There is a need for additional community‐based support mechanisms to ensure access to these services.

There is growing concern that some groups without access to high‐speed broadband networks, e.g. those residing in rural and remote areas, will be unable to benefit from online education, health and government services, etc. Such concerns have led to arguments that universal service obligations (USOs) should be upgraded to include access to broadband. This paper reviews the arguments and concludes that, at this stage of broadband development and diffusion, there is no convincing case for USO‐type mandates. Since the case for broadband USOs should be intermittently revisited, the paper proceeds, nevertheless, to explore what would be involved in a systematic review of this issue.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the history of the notion of universal service in the USA and the EU.

The paper takes the form of an historical account based on desk research and interviews.

The paper finds that the concept looks “universal”, so to speak, but is grounded in different legal and economic traditions. From an historical perspective, the conditions appear to be highly differentiated on either side of the Atlantic. Ironically, the main point in common, beyond the mere use of the same term, is the discrepancy between the alleged goal and the socio‐economic reality, which has existed for some decades.

The paper puts into an historical perspective the notion of universal service. It identifies strengths and weaknesses of the implemention in the EU and the USA.

Many governments wishing to provide telecommunication services to those who are unconnected have chosen the Universal Service Fund (USF) as the principal policy instrument. However, there is evidence that monies directly or indirectly collected from users of telecommunication services are lying unspent in these funds. The purpose of this paper is to propose metrics for measuring the disbursement efficacy of funds across time and across countries as an essential element of improving the performance of the universal service funds.

This paper proposes two metrics, the total disbursement rate (TDR) and the year-on-year disbursement rate (YDR), which can be used to assess the disbursement efficacy of universal service programs. It illustrates the value of the metrics by applying them to the USFs of India, Malaysia and Pakistan.

A move to push out funds has been observed in India in recent years. Pakistan had not reached the same momentum up to mid-2014. An improvement in Malaysia’s disbursement efficacy was observed until 2013, with nearly all of the funds collected in the previous year being disbursed. A significant proportion of the funds collected are lying unspent in the three USFs, nevertheless.

The proposed metrics are robust, objective and parsimonious indicators that allow comparison over time and across countries. They will enable productive, evidence-based conversations that will hold fund administrators accountable and will inform the design and implementation of more effective policy mechanisms.

This paper seeks to examine the investment dimensions of next generation networks from a universal service perspective in a European context. The question is how new network infrastructures for providing access for everyone to communication, information and entertainment services in the present and future information society will be funded.

The paper starts by looking at the range of policy measures available for promoting broadband access. This is followed by an overview of existing and upcoming access network technologies. Before concluding, there is a section on alternative funding mechanisms, including a sub‐section on the potential of private public partnerships (PPP) in providing funding for broadband access infrastructures.

Although there is nothing in principle hindering the development of universal service policies from those that include a specific service and its underlying network technology towards more general access, other policy measures are likely to become more important in practice for the fulfilment of the universal service goal. Wide diffusion and de facto universal service will, to a higher degree, have to rely on other measures: alternative funding mechanisms and a wider range of policy measures to expand broadband take‐up.

The value of the paper is in its combination of two issues often discussed separately: alternative funding mechanisms and universal access. Furthermore, the implications of NGN are examined.

Argues social issues should play an important role in debates surrounding telecommunications services, looking particular at Australia’s universals service. Concludes each country needs to look at the specific issues affecting it population to enable use of the most appropriate policies. Stresses debates about telecoms services should not take place, just in economic terms, as social policy is just as important.

Looks at the shift in emphasis in Australia, from a historical perspective and examines the growing fears in the community that citizens may become disenfranchised as a result. Argues that a slavish adherence to efficiency through technological advance risks undervaluing the complementarity of information in the community. Concludes that focusing on efficiency and quantification moves away from noting the constitutional and democratic scope of telecommunications.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the success and continuing relevance of the universal service obligation (USO) in delivering voice telephony, basic digital data capability and broadband services to all Australians.

The paper outlines the background to the National Broadband Plan being implemented by the Labor Government elected in November 2007. The costs of this plan and other funding programs implemented since 1996 are annualized and compared to the cost of the USO.

The paper reveals that the USO has been eclipsed as a policy tool for making basic telecommunications services universally available in Australia, at least for the time being. It survives as a policy mechanism, but is contained to fixed line telephony, payphones and basic digital data capability. Its declared costs have fallen. The proposed national broadband network continues the trend towards using government funding to achieve telecommunications policy goals. This trend was initiated by the previous government with some of the proceeds from privatizing the former government monopoly, Telstra. The national broadband network also supplements this trend with a reversion to a degree of state participation in a facility (a fibre‐to‐the‐node network serving 98 percent of the population) likely to have strong natural monopoly characteristics.

The paper considers the USO as just one of many tools available to ensure basic telecommunication services are universally available and the debates about it in Australia less as arguments about where an old concept should go in the future, and more about what a very young concept really means.