National Information Infrastructure Development in Canada and the U.S.: Redefining Universal Service and Universal Access in the Age of Techno-Economic Convergence

Abstract

This exploratory and descriptive research compares the policy-making processes and policy recommendations regarding universal service and universal access developed by the U.S. National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIIAC) and the Canadian Information Highway Advisory Council (IHAC) in conjunction with related federal government agencies. Created in 1993 and 1994, respectively, the Councils were charged with "bringing forward" the concepts of universal service and universal access to adjust to the effects of deregulation, new and converged Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and neo-liberal economic competition and globalization that included acknowledging the private sector as the primary creator of the Information Highway.This qualitative study used as its methodology organizational, policy, narrative, and discourse analyses to create a picture of what universal service and universal access were and what they became in the hands of NIIAC, IHAC. The U.S. had started with a more clearly defined universal service tradition than Canada, and undertook a more complex policy-making process with more experienced personnel. It was also clear that IHAC had in many ways followed the U.S. model and arrived at many similar recommendations as NIIAC. Because of the inevitability of technical, economic, and social change related to the Information Highway, no definitive outcome to the Universal Service and Universal Access "story" can be determined. Because the Canadian government did not follow up on some of IHAC's most crucial recommendations, the Canadian Information Highway "story," in particular, has been left less complete than that of the U.S.