As I have mentioned earlier in my post at http://ictsforall.blogspot.in/search/label/Universal%20Service, Universal Access (UA)/ Universal Service (US) as obligations or policy instruments should ideally come into play when in spite of effective regulation, liberalization and competition being in place, the still market fails to serve certain areas or sections of population. The latter is known as the Actual Access Gap and may arise on account of geographical or socio-economic reasons etc. The former are instruments to close what is known as the Market Efficiency Gap.
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Some developed and many developing countries may however find themselves in a less than ideal situation where USFs are funding more than the actual access gap on account of failure to achieve market efficiency.
An important aspect of effective regulation in today's world is spectrum management. OFCOM's liberalization of spectrum policy in consumer interest a reported at http://www.mobileworldlive.com/uk-regulator-gives-green-light-for-4g-in-2g3g-spectrum is an example of such effective regulation. An article titled "Key to robust telecom policy: Place markets above command and control" that appeared in the Economic Times on July, 8 2013 may also be of interest to readers. It highlights inter alia the requirement of effective spectrum management in India including flexibility of its usage across technologies.
