A critique of universal service, E-Rate, and the chimera of the public's interest

This essay argues that Federal Communication Commission's implementation of the universal service requirements mandated by federal law fails to meet any measurable means of reducing the gap between the information haves and have-nots. It is primarily an information poverty reduction program. Introducing the idea of community-based universal service, along with a federally-funded entitlement program for specific local and state organizations, introduces several unsettling and untested aspects to the social equity equation. Gathering better measurements about participants in the program and specific research directions could go a long way toward reducing this uncertainty.