Today, the expanded definition may include an evolving package of basic and information services. Service to remote locations and public institutions will still be subsidized, but the method of subsidization must change. All telecommunications providers in the area must contribute to a Universal Service Fund, and its funds will go to help subsidize those more expensive areas, i.e., low-traffic, low density. Videoconferencing has normally used dedicated video equipment, but increasingly, personal computers can perform the same function over the local switched network. A large-scale, high speed communications network used mainly for connecting local area and metro area networks located in different cities and states.
WANs enable data terminals in one city to access data resources in another city or country.
Wireless technology beams phone conversations through the air, rather than through copper of fiber-optic cable. GTE Telephone Operations, Federal Communications Commission, Congressional Quarterly, Jones Cable Television and Information Infrastructure Dictionary, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996.