« Taiwan Journal of Political Science No.22Publish: 2004/12

Empirical Study of the Impact of Privatization of Taiwan’s Telecommunication Industry on Universal Service

Author: Shu-Hsin Lin

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

By July 1996, Taiwan’s telecommunication service had long been offered bythe    Directorate    of    Telecommunications,    Ministry    of    Transportation    andCommunications, which was in charge of administrative supervision and businessoperation  as  well.    Therefore,  the  Directorate  of  Telecommunications  was  alsoresponsible for the supply for universal service of telecommunications in that thedeficit  could  be  made  up  through  the  cross  subsidization  of  different  operationitems.    Even  after  the  implementation  of  privatization  of  telecommunicationindustry, the authorities concerned still intended to assure the purpose of universalservice   by   amending   decrees   and   laws,   such   as   Article   20   and   21   ofTelecommunications     Code,     thus     indicating     that     the     significance     oftelecommunication’s   universal   service   has   been   looked   at   without   bias.Notwithstanding,   the   fact   that   the   implementation   of   telecommunication’suniversal service system was started in 2002 indicates the slowness of the reformin  telecommunication  industry  as  well  as  a  slight  insufficiency  of  the  emphaticdegree on the issue of universal service.This  study  is  an  essay  of  empirical  analysis.    The  writer  aims  to  make  acomprehensive  understanding  of  status  quo  and  obstacle  for  implementation  oftelecommunication’s  universal  service  system  practiced  in  Taiwan  by  means  ofconducting analysis of the literatures about domestic and foreign universal servicesand in-depth interview as well as explore the developmental direction in the future.

Keywords:privatization、telecommunication、universal service、universal service fund