Definition of Universal Service
The Communications Act of 1934 first established the concept of making affordable basic telephone service available to everyone everywhere within a nation, state, or other governmental jurisdiction. This concept led to the formation of a fund known as the Universal Service Fund (USF), which was finally codified in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In some cases, the concept has been widened to include other telecommunications-information services, mainly Internet access.
Before the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Universal Service Fund (USF) operated as a mechanism by which interstate long distance carriers were assessed to subsidize telephone service to low-income households and high-cost areas in order to ensure that all the people in the United States have access to rapid, efficient, nationwide communications service with sufficient facilities at realistic charges.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 expanded the traditional definition of universal service - affordable, nationwide telephone service – to include other services, such as rural health care providers and eligible schools and libraries.
The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. Today the FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.
Read more about this topic: Universal Service Fund
Famous quotes containing the words definition of, definition, universal and/or service:
“Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in
principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic
definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in
principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic
definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music, alike in frightful alarms and in the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In any service where a couple hold down jobs as a team, the male generally takes his ease while the wife labors at his job as well as her own.”
—Anita Loos (1888–1981)