Telecommunication Services in the Broadband Age

Andressa Lin Fidelis

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (“Telecom Act”) has expanded the scope of universal service to ensure that both telecommunications and advanced services considered essential to citizenship are provided at “affordable” and “reasonably comparable” rates. To carry this goal, state and federal commissioners have implemented implicit and later on explicit subsidies that made it possible to offer residential consumers low local telephone rates throughout the country.

However, amid the reality of the 21st century, with broadband connection supplanting traditional telecommunication voice and data services as the primary