This book is the outgrowth of shared interests between the editors and the contributing authors to provide a multidisciplinary perspective in evaluating universal service policy and recommending policy changes to accommodate a more competitive telecommunications environment. The book is interdisciplinary in nature to reflect the extremely complex context in which universal service policy is formed. The chapter authors represent a broad cross-section of disciplinary training, professional positions, and relationships in the telecommunications industry. Academic disciplines represented include law, economics, anthropology, communication, and business. This book's purpose is to significantly enhance the development of effective telecommunications universal service policy among policymakers, industry members, and stakeholders in the United States. Universal service policy has been, and will continue to be, both enabled and constrained by the simultaneous interaction of social, political, technological, and economic forces in the environment in which it is formed. A more effective process for policy design is to seek agreement on how entitlements embedded in universal service policy should be modified as circumstances invariably change over time. Therefore, the volume reflects recent significant developments in U.S. universal service policy--the implementation of which continues to unfold.

This document presents witness testimony and supplemental materials from a Congressional hearing regarding reform to national telecommunications policy, namely, replacing a regime of heavy regulation with a true market system. Statements are featured by Senators John Ashcroft, Conrad Burns, Ernest Hollings, Kay Baily Hutchison, John D. Rockefeller IV, Bob Packwood, Larry Pressler, and Ted Stevens. Testimony is included from: (1) Anne K. Bingaman, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice; (2) Henry Geller, the Markle Foundation; (3) George Gilder, the Discovery Institute; (4) Kenneth Gordon, Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities; (5) Peter W. Huber, Manhattan Institute; (6) Larry Irving, Department of Commerce; (7) John W. Mayo, University of Tennessee; (8) Dr. Lee Selwyn, Economics and Technology; and (9) Clay Whitehead, Clay Whitehead Associates. A brief appendix reports on the forecasts of the WEFA Group for communications competition. (BEW)