When credit cards get maxed out, they can no longer be used and some people have trouble paying. The same thing can happen with phone service. The study looks at universal service and the myths that have grown up around telephone penetration and the social condition of being without a telephone. Basic monthly service rates control how affordable telephone service is. This is three percent above the national average.
Households headed by women have lower penetration levels than do households headed by men.
People go on and come off the network all the time. Society benefits by keeping them on. But to do so will require a true understanding of why they are off, and the cooperation of telephone companies, regulators and independent researchers. The study was funded by Bell Atlantic, and is based on in depth interviews with families who do not have telephone service now, or have lost service in the recent past. The interviews were conducted in Camden, N.J. as part of the ongoing research of the Rutgers University Project on Information Policy.