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Universal Access Principles

For those APEC economies who believe there is a need to provide universal access to telecommunications services, the following principles provide guidance on how APEC economies can accomplish this in line with the prevailing legal and regulatory environment and government structure of each economy, within the framework of the Bogor Declaration timetable for achieving free trade and investment in the APEC region:
1. Extension of basic telecommunications access is recognised as fundamental to economic development.

2. Each economy will decide on the scope of its own Universal Access objectives according to its own circumstances.

3. The evaluation of universal access objectives should take account of the broad economic and social benefits and the corresponding costs of limited access.

4. The telecommunications regulatory framework:

  • should be administered independently from service operators in order to champion the interests of users;
  • should encourage rational competition so that market-driven network development has the greatest opportunity to flourish; and
  • should provide the kind of certainty in the market that encourages maximum private investment in the network.

5. The policy framework for universal access should encourage:

  • the private sector to use innovative bases for generating and calculating revenues;
  • governments to consider using communications technology to deliver services both for the cost benefit to the government budget and for the intangible benefits to the people of strengthening the communications network;
  • the universal service providers to minimise the costs in providing universal service without compromise on the quality of service; and
  • equitable sharing of the net universal service costs among the relevant contributing parties. The obligation in supporting the provision of universal service should not affect the relative competitiveness of the operators and service providers in the telecommunications market.

6. To be sustainable in the long run, universal access must be provided on a basis that is independent of implicit cross-subsidies. Therefore revenues should be arranged so that net costs are met through one or more of the following mechanisms:

  • requiring the provision of universal access as part of the conditions of the licenses of carriers;
  • mobilisation of diverse capital resources, including public, private and foreign capital;
  • transparent funding mechanisms to channel resources to universal access providers, consistent with Members’ international commitments and other policies;
  • commercial arrangements negotiated against the backdrop of competition laws.