Also, it describes the major trends of the papers for the telecommunications policy and legislation making issued by the European Union. Then, it shows not only the member states' policy approaches but also the telecommunications service providers' and equipment manufacturers' business strategies. For them, in this liberalized market, the global strategic alliances with the international carriers become crucially important. Since then European Union and its member nations have aggressively been promoting the construction of the single European market and the liberalization of the national markets. In the telecommunications markets, the competition has become intense.
Most service providers tend to avoid the services in the unprofitable areas or social strata.
In this liberalized environment, so as to ensure basic telecommunications services for them, it is necessary to set certain legal obligations to the service providers. They are called universal service obligations. However, if the extent of the obligation is not adequate, the universal service obligation might disturb the improvement of services which is expected in the introduction of competition. Thus, it is crucial to set the optimal scope of universal service obligation. Thus, they have actualized various universal service policies.