Comparative Research On Telecommunication Universal Service Policy In China And America

Telecommunication universal service is to provide telecommunication service for all the citizens in a country, which has certain quality guarantee and can be defrayed. No matter in developed or developing countries, telecommunication universal service occupies an important position in control policy of telecommunication industry. Now monopoly has been broken, competition has been introduced all over the world. As a result, theoretical research and regulatory reform in many countries has been focused on universal service.In China, universal service still developes slowly after several large-scale reforms and recombinations in telecommunication market. Problems like great input, little output, hard maintainance still exist, which has become a heavy burden to operators for long. In our country, communication condition in remote western areas and in the countryside need our attention more, universal service system requires improvement extremely. This thesis is written after Chinese telecommunication industry has just been recombined for the fourth time. It probes the origin of telecommunication universal service. First, development of telecommunication universal service policy in China and Amierica is introduced. Second, the present situation of telecommunication universal service policy in China and Amierica is analysed in detail. This part centres on the discussion of American universal service fund system and Chinese system of dividing up the work and assigning a part to each. Third, universal service policy is compared thoroughly in the following aspects:national conditions, developing time and extent, objective scope, the object of subsidy, the source of fund, and managerial system, etc. At last, Chinese universal service policy in the new period of telecommunication recombination is discussed in seven respects: 1. improve the legislation of telecommunication universal service; 2. establish the principles of universal service; 3. standardize cost counting of universal service; 4. set up telecommunication universal service fund; 5. implement universal service items; 6. build up market encouraging mechanism; 7. establish assessment system and monitoring system of universal service policy.