Universal access and service (UAS) policies must fit contexts that have changed significantly over the past decade. In developing countries, these policies now have:
- Much more ambitious goals. Technology change and market growth have lowered costs to the level where near-universal access to telecommunications is an achievable goal for many countries, and a degree of use can be affordable for almost all citizens. Many countries have now set their sights on universal access (UA) for Internet and broadband services, as well as universal service (US) goals for telephony. Chapter 8 discusses the implications of new technologies for UAS. ICT spending is now entering the budgets of base of the pyramid consumers [1]. Gapminder provides several interesting ways of visualising some of the tremendous changes, country by country, which have been taking place in technological usage [2].
- More complex interactions with other policies. ICTs are often interdependent and support many applications and services; these increasingly close relationships are often called convergence. UAS policies should ideally be designed in co-ordination with, or at least with consideration of, other government policies, including those for computer applications, health, education, government, and rural livelihoods (including electricity, infrastructure, etc.). Countries require overarching national ICT policies that address the sectors impacted by ICT. UAS policies are typically a sub-policy to the national ICT policy, which is outlining ICT development in all sectors of the economy and society. However, UAS policies aimed at increasing telecommunications infrastructure and access need not be held up if other sectors are slower; and
- More experience and best practices to build on. Over the past decade, many developing countries have introduced UAS policies. This toolkit aims to bring together the most important lessons from this experience.
These changed contexts are reflected in the observed and possible future trends in UAS policies described in
Sections 1.4.1 and
1.4.2.
End notes
- See The Next 4 Billlion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid (Allen Hammond and others, WRI, March 2007), especially Chapters 1 and 3.
- See Gapminder (Gapminder Foundation). Look for specific relation between teledensity and income, click “play”.