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

NCCR Trade Regulation Working Paper No. 2006/10

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

Suggested Citation

Burri, Mira, The New Concept of Universal Service in a Digital Networked Communications Environment (September 1, 2006). I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 117-146, 2007, NCCR Trade Regulation Working Paper No. 2006/10, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1120282 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1120282

Mira Burri (Contact Author)

University of Lucerne ( email )

Frohburgstrasse 3
PO Box 4466
Lucerne, 6002
Switzerland

HOME PAGE: http://www.unilu.ch/mira-burri

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