Goals
The major goals of Universal Service as mandated by the 1996 Act are as follows:
- To promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable, and affordable rates,
- To increase access to advanced telecommunications services throughout the Nation,
- To advance the availability of such services to all consumers, including those in low income, rural, insular, and high cost areas at rates that are reasonably comparable to those charged in urban areas,
- To increase access to telecommunications and advanced services in schools, libraries and rural health care facilities,
- To provide equitable and non-discriminatory contributions from all providers of telecommunications services to the fund supporting universal service programs.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 states that all providers of telecommunications services should contribute to the federal universal service in a fair and nondiscriminatory manner; there should be specific, predictable, and sufficient Federal and State mechanisms to preserve and advance universal service; all schools, classrooms, health care providers, and libraries should have access to advanced telecommunications services; and lastly, that the Federal-State Joint Board and the Commission should determine those other principles that, consistent with the 1996 Act, are necessary to protect the public interest.
Read more about this topic: Universal Service Fund
Famous quotes containing the word goals:
“Our ego ideal is precious to us because it repairs a loss of our earlier childhood, the loss of our image of self as perfect and whole, the loss of a major portion of our infantile, limitless, ain’t-I-wonderful narcissism which we had to give up in the face of compelling reality. Modified and reshaped into ethical goals and moral standards and a vision of what at our finest we might be, our dream of perfection lives on—our lost narcissism lives on—in our ego ideal.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)
“We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be. The question is not what we can do now for the hypothetical Mexican, the hypothetical Negro. The question is what we really want out of life, for ourselves, what we think is real.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress. When you realize there are no goals or objectives, then you realize, too, that there is no chance: for only in a world of objectives does the word “chance” have any meaning.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)