Universal Service and Open Access
(Forum Introduction/ NTIA Virtual Conference)
Susan G. Hadden

It is time to redefine universal telecommunications service.  
Basic local telephone service will soon not be enough to keep
people in the economic and social mainstream.  They will need more
advanced telecommunications that allow them to meet and exchange
information with people far away.  Rapid advances in technology 
and falling costs make this vision feasible within the foreseeable 
future.

Universal service is the level of telecommunications we want people
to have readily available.  Society takes a stand on this issue
because the value of a network grows when more people are connected
to it, offering greater possibilities for economic development and
social and democratic interaction.   But universal service as now
implemented entails a complex system of cross-subsidies among
telephone services to keep rates relatively low in areas that are
hard to reach.

It is possible and desirable to separate the issues of the nature
and cost of universal service.   Affordability is the subject of a
separate forum on this conference.   In this forum, we will
consider what telecommunications services would bring society the
greatest benefit, letting cost take a back seat.    We will further
break the term "universal service" into its two parts and debate
each, defining both the "services" and the "universality" of
universal service.  For each of these two topics, I pose several
questions and offer my own brief responses for forum members to
critique and refine.

I.  Defining the services.

1.  What basket of telecommunications capabilities and services
should people be able to obtain in the future?

What basket of telecommunications capabilities and services should
people be able to obtain today-voice mail, touch-tone, digital
services?

Should universal service be redefined incrementally; that is,
should additional services be added on one or two at a time until
we reach the long-range goal?

How will we know when these services are ready to be included?

2.  Open access.   Suppose we define open access as meaning the
ability of any person on the network to send as well as receive
information.

Is there a difference between open access and universal service?

3.  How can we ensure that the information and services available
on the NII are important and useful enough that people will want
access to be "basic" or "universal"?

Who could develop these services?

Who could develop these services?

Let's go whole hog, defining universal service as the ability to
send and receive audio, video, and data.   Why video?  Because it
is the form in which people most easily understand information and
the only form in which people who cannot read well can get useable
information.   Imagine having to use words to help a child
distinguish between two breeds of small dogs.
"Visits" to the doctor, pictures of proposed neighborhood
development projects, and many other important potential uses are
impossible without video.

In order for advanced telecommunications to be worth having at
home, however, they must be easy to use.   Certainly, emergency
response and 911 services must be as easy to use as they are now,
taking into account the wide differences in users' ages, abilities,
and willingness to learn new technology.  It will require a lot of
work to ensure that people can readily find the information and
services they want.

Finally, for people to be willing to pay, the package of services
available must be diverse and interesting.   In a recent Harris
poll, well under half the respondents wanted movies on demand or
interactive shopping; in contrast, nearly 75 percent wanted
information about health and more than half wanted access to
government information.   Thus people are increasingly talking
about governments as "anchor tenants" on the NII: provision of
government services would create a level of demand large enough to
justify private investment in advanced networks and would
supplement private entertainment and information services in making
an attractive, even necessary, set of available services.

II.   Defining "universal."

4.  Is a telecommunications service universal if it is available
primarily in institutions such as libraries, schools, hospitals,
and post offices?

Or is it necessary that it be available in homes?

Is availability in institutions an appropriate way to make the
transition until most people want and can afford it in their homes?

How can we devise incentives for investment in technologies for the
"last mile" to the home?

5.  Is a telecommunications service "universal" if not everyone
actually has it?  Today, 5 to 6 percent of households do not have
telephones.   If the NII becomes a unified means of
communicating-including audio, video, data, "fax," television, new
services, and so on-can we let people go without it?   

There are presumably people who do not want to have interactive
telecommunications.  Should we define a "sub-basic" package that
provides minimal contact-perhaps voice mail and one-way in services
such as television?

Universality must ultimately mean access in the home.  Why?  The
Administration has endorsed a strategy of delivering advanced
telecommunications services to libraries, schools, and hospitals. 
This is an important step-if it is regarded as an intermediate step
towards delivery to homes.   But if people are obtaining financial
or medical information or obtaining help in learning to read as
adults, they will not want to be in a public place where people can
look over their shoulders.

Furthermore, one important feature of open access seems to be the
ability to use the system whenever convenient or necessary, and we
know that schools and libraries are not going to be open 24 hours
a day.    In addition, since people with limited mobility are among
the ones who can benefit most from advanced telecommunications
services, we cannot expect people to have to go out, even to a
community center, in bad weather or late at night.   Finally, we
know that some people will buy home access; then we run the risk of
having two classes of people-those who are on-line in the privacy
of their homes and those who have access only during the hours
institutions are open.

Properly redefined and managed, universal service can carry our
nation forward well into the next century.   This forum is a step
towards that goal.

Susan G. Hadden
LBJ School of Public Affairs
The University of Texas
Austin, Texas 78713