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:
“Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible, not to find a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.”
—Walter Pater (18391894)
“Although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction.”
—The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, the first sentence of the article on life (based on wording in the First Edition, 1935)
“The world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)