From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In telecommunications, universal service was conceived by Theodore Vail, at AT&T, in the late 1800s; any user could connect. This concept has been extended to users on the Internet.
This concept, arising from competition for rights to an electrical distribution system, became regulated as a public utility, in exchange for monopoly control of telephony.
With the industrialization of the US, the concept of universal service has even been extended to human rights, in the sense of an entitlement, in some views.
