Universal service for users: recent research results
- an international perspective

Claire Milne

Universal service in telecommunications has long been a familiar
item on the North American policy debate agenda. But it is a much
more recent arrival in most of the rest of the world, including
Western Europe. It has sprung to prominence because of actual or
impending liberalisation of telecoms markets, and the need to ensure
at least the continuation of earlier levels of universal service in
a competitive environment, with appropriate financing arrangements.
There is now an active debate among industry participants and
regulators on how best to frame the new regulations.

But to state the obvious, universal service is for users. The
intention of universal service policies is to fulfil the telecoms
needs of people whom the free market might fail to serve. It also
seems obvious that a first step in designing successful universal
service policies should be finding out what these unfulfilled telecoms
needs are; and that a prime test of the success of any universal
service policy should be how far it does in fact fulfil those needs.
Sadly, these user aspects are often neglected. Whether through
oversight or lack of resources, user groups play little part in
policy formation. The paper contends that European Union policy,
while acutely sensitive to the needs of fair competition, is in
danger of missing its original target - the needy user.

The growth of a telecoms network may conveniently be viewed in a
number of phases (the paper describes one approach to doing this).
Today's developed countries are in the "network completion" phase,
following an earlier "mass market rollout" phase. The univeral
service challenge that they now face is to address the residual
markets that are left once the main, mass market has been connected.

These "marginal markets" fall into three main categories: residents
of remote rural areas, people with low-incomes, and disabled
people. Each group has its own special needs. The mass market
can be efficiently addressed with bulk standard offerings. But
these groups need specialised offerings tailored to their particular
requirements. These in turn depend on market research to find out
these needs in detail. The main purpose of the paper is to review
such research results as exist and to point to what is needed next.

The author has been closely involved with the consumer universal
service lobby in the UK for the past 10 years, and more recently
with European developments. The paper outlines the UK research
results that were obtained after many years of pressure, and give
an overview of corresponding results from other countries. It
explains how these results influence the design of targeted special
tariffs and packages for meeting the needs of particular groups,
especially low-income groups. It underlines the importance of
taking account of differentiated quality of service as well as price.

To date the focus of debate has been on completing the telephone
network. But it is now also looking at including new services in
universal service obligations. Here too, research is vital to
identify the services of real social importance. Comparative
studies of the takeup of various new consumer goods and services
could aid understanding of the growth of the "information society"
and the proper role for public policy.