Universal Service Policy Research Articles

Bridging the digital divide in Africa via universal service funds: an institutional theory perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide evidence-based policy recommendations for improving the implementation of universal service funds (USF) with a view to closing the digital divide in Africa.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a qualitative approach that draws examples from various African countries supported by 25 interviews from key stakeholders with hands-on experience and roles that shape telecommunications policy in Africa and other developing countries.FindingsThe study's findings point out that institutional voids which characterize several African countries inhibit the effectiveness of USF in African countries. The authors identify several institutional and organisational factors and explain how they negatively affect the performance of USF. The authors find that in order to overcome these obstacles, there is a need for a clear redefinition of Universal Access and Service (UAS) policies, restructuring the governance of USF, encouraging cross-sectoral collaborations, and bottom-up initiatives to bridge the digital divide in African countries.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the underexplored USF literature by shedding light on the role of institutional factors in determining the success of USF. The paper thus complements and provides a different perspective on promoting digital inclusion in Africa from the viewpoint of institutional voids, bringing new insights into the existing literature on how to deal with an intractable area of UAS policy and the wider digital divide debate in developing countries.

Digital Haves and Have Nots: Why Universal Service and Digital Divide Policy Issues Have Persisted Over the Last 50 Years and Will Continue to Do So

Digital Haves and Have Nots: Why Universal Service and Digital Divide Policy Issues Have Persisted Over the Last 50 Years and Will Continue to Do So

The rise of the policy-takers: Universal service policy adoption in Jordan and Morocco

In the late 1990s, Jordan and Morocco revised their telecommunications regulation drastically. Though these regulations were first largely inspired by the European Union policy models, each country gradually developed more autonomy, individually tailoring their regulatory frameworks overtime. The case of Universal Service Obligation (USO) policies show that while Jordan remained aligned with the European Union, Moroccan policy-makers diverged from the European Union by adopting alternative policies, inspired by the Latin American reverse-auction models. Research focusing on Euro-Mediterranean regulatory contexts commonly expect neighbouring countries to converge with EU regulatory models. Yet, borrowing on policy diffusion literature and specifically the mechanisms of learning and imitation, this article shows that policy-takers intentionally decided on the (non)adoption of USO policies. Thus, research needs to take the role of policy-takers seriously and acknowledge avenues for bidirectional convergence.

Universal Service and Competition

The author is advising the Cook Islands on how to introduce mobile competition, drawing on the experience of Australia. In both countries the impact of infrastructure competition on mandated geographically uniform pricing is being (or proposed to be) addressed with a levy. The different approaches to measuring costs and setting the levy are contrasted. The paper proposes that a universal service levy has to be coupled with consistent access pricing to have efficient competition consistent with universal service policy. Interconnection between networks is free but the pricing of resold wholesale services should be consistent with the aims of the levy; to ensure universal service and efficient competition.

Juggling ecumenical wisdoms and xenophobic institutions: Framing and modelling China's telecommunications universal service and rural digitalization initiatives and policies

China historically belongs to a farming civilization, in which rural population tended to stick to their farmlands for a lifetime. This situation has somehow been changing with, inter alia, the advancement and application of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In recent years, China has been pushing for the inclusion of its rural communities into modern information society through aggressively digitalizing its rural areas under a public policy umbrella. With the literature's lopsided focus on Western nations, a cohesive paradigm in mapping the Chinese style of universal service implementation remains elusive, a situation that has often obfuscated deeper understanding of the Chinese case from a socioeconomic, technological, or institutional perspective. The main purpose of this present paper lies in the framing and modelling of China's universal service and rural digitalization practices. The paper proposes and applies an integrated offer–agent–target (OAT) framework in a retrospective and empirical examination of the Chinese case and conceptual characterization of what has appeared to be the Chinese model. In so doing, China's universal service development is demarcated into discernible stages that are then pattern-matched with corresponding institutional landscapes. Three salient stages are identified and corresponding institutional landscapes explicated. Finally, insights and suggestions are offered that throws lights on the current issues and future developments.

Interpretação dos gestores da região de Campinas sobre a alimentação escolar

O Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar (PNAE) é uma política pública de atendimento universal aos alunos das escolas públicas brasileiras e tem suas rotinas e procedimentos bem definidos. A Lei Federal nº 11.947 de 2009 foi um grande avanço após décadas de ações e investimentos públicos e assim este estudo objetivou revelar, analisar e compreender os conhecimentos, interpretações, e práticas dos Secretários Municipais da Educação e Nutricionistas – Responsáveis Técnicos; os gestores dos programas municipais de alimentação escolar da Região Metropolitana de Campinas (RMC), em relação à legislação que o define. O estudo teve abordadem qualitativa realizado por meio de entrevistas com os gestores do PNAE nos municípios da RMC em 2014 e 2015. Para a análise do conteúdo das entrevistas foi utilizada a técnica do Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo (DSC), baseada na Teoria das Representações Sociais. O discurso dos secretários de educação revelou seu papel político, muitas vezes demonstrando desconhecimento sobre a dimensão e sobre a legislação de referência do programa de alimentação escolar. O discurso dos nutricionistas demonstrou dificuldade em seguir a legislação de referência do PNAE por questões técnicas ou falta de preparo. De forma geral, os discursos dos gestores revelaram uma interpretação assistencialista da alimentação escolar, diferentemente do que propõe o PNAE. A representação social de alimentação escolar entre os gestores é a denominação “merenda”, embora reconheçam que este conceito seja ultrapassado. Observa-se a necessidade de atualização dos gestores públicos e melhor capacitação, assim como a inclusão de disciplinas voltadas à area de gestão de políticas públicas no currículo dos cursos de nutrição.

The rise of the policy-takers: Universal service policy adoption in Jordan and Morocco

In the late 1990s, Jordan and Morocco revised their telecommunications regulation drastically. Though these regulations were first largely inspired by the European Union policy models, each country gradually developed more autonomy, individually tailoring their regulatory frameworks overtime. The case of Universal Service Obligation (USO) policies show that while Jordan remained aligned with the European Union, Moroccan policy-makers diverged from the European Union by adopting alternative policies, inspired by the Latin American reverse-auction models. Research focusing on Euro-Mediterranean egulatory contexts commonly expect neighbouring countries to converge with EU regulatory models. Yet, borrowing on policy diffusion literature and specifically the mechanisms of learning and imitation, this article shows that policy-takers intentionally decided on the (non)adoption of USO policies. Thus, research needs to take the role of policy-takers seriously and acknowledge avenues for bidirectional convergence.

The Persistence of Broadband User Behavior: Implications for Universal Service and Competition Policy

In several markets, firms compete not for consumer expenditure but consumer attention. We examine user priorities over the allocation of their time, and interpret that behavior in light of policy discussions over universal service, data caps, and related policy topics, such as merger analysis. Specifically, we use extensive microdata on user online choice to characterize the demand for the services offered online, which drives a household’s supply of attention. Our data cover a period of time that saw the introduction of many new and notable sites and new devices on which to access them. In our analysis, we assess “how” households supply their attention along various dimensions, such as their concentration of attention across the universe of sites and the amount of attention expenditure per domain visit. Remarkably, we find no change in “how” households allocated their attention despite drastically changing where they allocated it. Moreover, conditional on total attention expenditure, demographics entirely fail to predict our key measures of attention allocation decisions. We highlight several important implications, for policy and beyond, stemming from the persistence and demographic orthogonality of our novel attention measures.

The persistence of broadband user behavior: Implications for universal service and competition policy

In several markets, firms compete not for consumer expenditure but consumer attention. We examine user priorities over the allocation of their time, and interpret that behavior in light of policy discussions over universal service, data caps, and related policy topics, such as merger analysis. Specifically, we use extensive microdata on user online choice to characterize the demand for the services offered online, which drives a household's supply of attention. Our data cover a period of time that saw the introduction of many new and notable sites and new devices on which to access them. In our analysis, we assess “how” households supply their attention along various dimensions, such as their concentration of attention across the universe of sites and the amount of attention expenditure per domain visit. Remarkably, we find no change in “how” households allocated their attention despite drastically changing where they allocated it. Moreover, conditional on total attention expenditure, demographics entirely fail to predict our key measures of attention allocation decisions. We highlight several important implications, for policy and beyond, stemming from the persistence and demographic orthogonality of our novel attention measures.

The Effect of Institutions on the Access and Adoption of Telecommunication Services in Mexico, 2013-2017

The article analyses the impact of the Telecommunications and Broadcasting Reform in the development of a new institutional environment for this industry, also, on fostering competition and on the proposal of a new generation universal service policies, with an emphasis on access to broadband Internet. Between 2013 and 2014, the Reform laid the foundations for a new institutional framework with the establishment of the Federal Institute of Telecommunications, a new regulatory institution, and public policy, with the power and autonomy to promote competition in this sector in a convergent manner (telecommunications and broadcasting). In this new institutional environment, substantive measures were implemented to promote competition through declarations of market power by sector, through the figure of a preponderant economic agent. In March 2014, Grupo America Movil and Grupo Televisa were declared preponderant and subject to asymmetric regulation, which would lead to leveling the playing field, favoring competition. However, the impact of reforms designed to foster competition in the markets for telecommunications and broadcasting services will take time to mature and show results, through the greater participation of other companies. Nevertheless, it is possible to assert that the levels of markets contestability have increased, which refers to the real possibility or the credible threat about the participation of new contenders in these markets, which leads to the current participants to behave competitively. This contestability is due to the strength of the institutional environment, greater legal certainty associated with the Reform, in charge of defining and implementing the regulations and policies of the sector, including those related to the promotion of competition, the threat about the entry of new players is a sufficient incentive for market participants to behave competitively. The most critical pending issue consists of the adoption of telecommunications services by a broader sector of the population in Mexico. In this regard an analysis was carried out with two econometric tools: the analysis of fixed effects (2014-2017) and the synthetic analysis, which puts Mexico's achievements in adoption in a comparative perspective, to other Latin American countries with similar level of development to Mexico (2014-2016). Although there is a decrease in prices, especially in cellular services, this did not have the expected effect on adoption. The two econometric exercises, consistently, confirm that the institutional, regulatory and digital inclusion policy changes associated with the Reform have not yet had a significant effect on the adoption of telecommunications services. The gap is particularly evident in the case of mobile cellular services, in which Mexico shows a considerable lag and to a lesser degree in fixed-line services. The second pending issue is access to the broadband Internet. Until the first quarter of 2018, only 40 percent of the promised sites by Mexico Connected Program is functioning, and 32 percent of these were narrow band. These findings lead us to conclude that the government faces difficulties in offering an adequate response through a public policy of digital inclusion that adequately responds to the connectivity needs of the population in poverty.

Universal service in Vietnam: the role of government

PurposeThis paper aims to look at the universal service policy in Vietnam interval 2005-2010 from a stakeholder perspective to clarify the role of stakeholders as well as initiatives used to implement the policy.Design/methodology/approachThis paper applies the stakeholder framework of Papazafeiropoulou and Pouloudi (2000) to identify which actors implemented the universal service policy and what initiatives were used by the central government. In addition, this paper also uses the qualitative method to clarify the stakeholders’ position on performing the universal service policy. The qualitative interview is recruited to verify and triangulate the result of the secondary data.FindingsThis paper finds that the Vietnamese government controlled the universal service policy via an administrative regime that the central government ordered and other stakeholders followed; the universal service policy focused much on delivering universal service and infrastructure; however, there was lack of initiatives rising awareness of rural users about the benefit of the internet, or training courses on improving rural users’ skills to use the internet; and stakeholders implementing the universal service policy were state entities in which the national government played a central role, and there was no involvement of the private sector and the civil society.Originality/valueLittle research on universal service policies in Vietnam has been made. By analyzing the Vietnamese case, achievements and drawbacks in implementing universal service policies are identified and lessons for other developing countries are derived.

Universal service in Vietnam: An institutional approach

Applying institutional theory to look at the Program 74 (a universal service policy) in Vietnam, this paper concludes that the Vietnamese universal service policy was strongly affected by formal institutional factors (the international agreements and the directives of the Communist Party of Vietnam - CPV), in which the international agreements played a leading role and the CPV's directives played a guarantee role. The formulation and implementation of the universal service policy in Vietnam were mainly concentrated on action at levels 2 and 3 (formal and informal institutional arrangement, and formal institutional environment). The paper recommends that nations favouring a top-down approach not based on a market-oriented regime should deregulate and emphasize the role of provincial governments as well as encourage private sectors/social organizations and rural users to be more involved in the formulation and implementation of universal service policies. Moreover, the government should set up and force the contractual relations between governmental entities and telecom providers.

From universal service to universal connectivity

Two features of the century-old policy goal of promoting universal telephone service in the United States have been enduring. Policymakers have focused on (1) wireline telephone (and more recently, fixed-line broadband) services and (2) households. The widespread adoption of mobile telephones compels a fresh examination of this focus. We construct a new measure of universal connectivity which accounts for consumers’ choices of communications technologies and for their geographic mobility over the course of the day. This measure, in turn, compels a conceptual and empirical investigation of the determinants of mobile telephone diffusion within families. Our estimations of intra-household demand for mobile service permit us to develop simulations that estimate the economic impact of modernizing a key element of existing universal service policy (viz., the Lifeline Program) to reflect the goal of improving individual connectivity. We find that a policy expansion from a single subsidy per household to multiple subsidies per eligible household members would increase mobile subscriptions by 2.25 million and Lifeline costs by $250 million.

Significant Factors Influencing Rural Residents’ Well-Being with Regard to Electricity Consumption: An Empirical Analysis in China

The electric universal service policy, which has been implemented for many years in China, aims to meet the basic electricity demands of rural residents. Electricity consumption can facilitate the daily life of rural residents, such as lighting and cooking, which are necessary to their well-being. In practice, the well-being of rural residents due to electricity consumption is influenced by many factors. Therefore, to improve the well-being of rural residents, it is quite necessary to identify and optimize the significant factors that make the electric universal service policy play its prescribed role as well as possible. In this paper, the significant factors influencing rural residents’ well-being obtained from electricity consumption were identified and discussed by employing the Ordered Probit model. The results indicate that: (1) there are six significant factors, of which ‘educational level’, ‘health condition’, ‘each person income of a family per month’, and ‘service time of household appliances’ play positive roles in rural residents’ well-being, while ‘average power interruption times’ and ‘monthly electric charges’ have negative impacts; (2) for significant factors with positive roles, ‘educational level’ and ‘health condition’ show larger marginal effects on rural residents’ well-being; and (3) for significant factors with negative impacts, ‘average power interruption times’ has the greatest marginal effect. Finally, policy implications are proposed for improving rural residents’ well-being, which can also contribute to the effective implementation of the electric universal service policy in China.

Universal service policy in China (I): Institutional elements and ecosystem

The integration of “access” and “applications” into a single national program, as demonstrated in the Chinese case, once succeeded, may constitute a milestone in the arena of universal service policy and implementation. Despite scholarly consensus on the relevance of institutions, none has been found on a systemic examination of institutional variables in explaining the effectiveness of policy and implementation, let alone knowledge gap in a transitional context. Following historical institutionalism and case method, this and the companion paper bridge the gap by synthesizing a conceptual framework which integrates various institutional dimensions and policy elements underpinning the implementation of universal service initiatives. This paper provides a formal institutional perspective on the analysis and assessment, ex ante or ex post, of universal service policy and projects in China. The conceptual framework may serve as the basis for the analysis and assessment of China׳s rural informatization regime and projects. Meanwhile, the ecosystem model proposed in this paper has a potential of being extended to other countries. This study may collaterally further understanding of China׳s ongoing market reform from a nonmarket perspective.

Universal service policy in China (II): Case study and institutional variables

Our companion paper developed an institutional conceptual framework for the analysis and assessment of China׳s rural informatization regime and projects. Following the conceptual work and based on the case study of specific projects, this paper documents the institutional idiosyncrasies and identifies institutional variables affecting implementation effectiveness in China. If is found that China has fared well in some projects (usually at the construction or technical level) while encountered difficulties in some others (at semantic, service, and even higher levels), due to variance in the enforceability of differing institutional arrangements. China has arguably succeeded, at best, in the supply-side (“access” level) of the rural informatization ecosystem; this is partly because that the Chinese model has emphasized primarily on the formal side of institutions but considerably less so on the informal side. Accordingly, factors contributing to implementation success have, path-dependently, highlighted the functioning of regulative institutions but considerably less so of the normative-cognitive institutions. Policy implications are offered which call for a shift to the demand-side of the rural informatization ecosystem.

From Universal Service to Universal Communications

The policy of universal service must change. The 1975 world of a government-owned monopoly provider obligated to provide fixed line voice telephony has been replaced by the twenty-first century reality of Australians using fixed, mobile and text communications over a range of communications equipment and services provided by competitive providers. A new universal service must reflect those changed realities, and with it, the changed environment of a national broadband network, with competitive providers offering service and equipment choice.

From Universal Service to Universal Communications

The policy of universal service must change. The 1975 world of a government-owned monopoly provider obligated to provide fixed line voice telephony has been replaced by the twenty-first century reality of Australians using fixed, mobile and text communications over a range of communications equipment and services provided by competitive providers. A new universal service must reflect those changed realities, and with it, the changed environment of a national broadband network, with competitive providers offering service and equipment choice.

It's Time: Reimaging Universal Service for Digital Life

This article provides a brief introduction to a timely set of papers critically discussing universal service in telecommunications and proposing policy option. This is a longstanding public policy issue, moving once more into the foreground in Australia. The article puts the papers into context, and argues for the need to reconnect universal service policy with fertile and productive research, policy, social and technology innovation in other areas. Finally, the paper argues for the urgent need to fundamentally reimagine universal service to achieve the still relevant goal of access for all to essential communications technology.

It's Time: Reimaging Universal Service for Digital Life

This article provides a brief introduction to a timely set of papers critically discussing universal service in telecommunications and proposing policy option. This is a longstanding public policy issue, moving once more into the foreground in Australia. The article puts the papers into context, and argues for the need to reconnect universal service policy with fertile and productive research, policy, social and technology innovation in other areas. Finally, the paper argues for the urgent need to fundamentally reimagine universal service to achieve the still relevant goal of access for all to essential communications technology.