Origin

The Universal Service was conceived in 1837 by Rowland Hill who was advocating for postal reforms to include uniform rates across the United Kingdom and prepayment by sender via postage stamps. Universal Service is a key objective of the Universal Postal Union.

Some reports indicated that the word Universal Service was initially used in the 1910 by Theodore Vail, the President of AT & T. In the company’s Annual Report (1910), he described Universal Service by writing that, the telephone system should be universal, interdependent and intercommunicating, affording opportunity for any subscriber to any exchange to communicate with any other subscriber of any other exchange.

In the contemporary sense, Universal Service refers to having a communication device (a phone) and affordable communication service in every home. To be more legalistic, universal service means providing communication service with access to a defined minimum service of specified quality to all users everywhere at an affordable price.

The Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Article 1(d), provides that one of the purposes of the Union is to promote the extension of the benefits of the new communication technologies to all the world’s inhabitants.

The precise parameters for Universal Service are usually set by national law or regulation, or may be contained in the license of the service provider.