This chapter analyses changes in terminology that have defined notions of access and equity in telecommunications for consumers. In addition, the political and constitutive nature of terminology is examined. Words can marginalise by what they define and what is omitted. Furthermore the material conditions in which terms are used also constitute policy outcomes. Consequently, it is further argued that material and symbolic environments may have a mutual impact on policy. As discussed in the previous chapter, the policies of deregulation and structural changes to the GBEs failed to acknowledge people with disabilities adequately. Similarly, policy makers in their attempts to define equitable access to telecommunications in a changing environment appeared to give insufficient attention to the requirements of people with disabilities. Politically, they were significant in their near absence in policy.
The structural reform arrangements also led to a standardisation of terminology in terms of equitable access to telecommunications services. Traditionally, universal service has been defined in terms of overcoming geographical and technical barriers (See Wilson &Goggin, 1993; Cutler, 1990; Alston, 1990). However, until 1991 the term had never been used in legislation. By 1990 telephone penetration reached 94% and was used by Senator Alston, then in opposition, to question its validity as an ongoing objective. Instead, for him, its only enduring value was as a concept memorialised as a fait accompli:
There can be little doubt about the enduring validity of the universal service concept, but as the Davidson Report noted in 1982, its objective as in most industrialised countries has already been achieved in Australia (Alston, 1990, 388).
Viewed in terms of overcoming geographical and technical barriers it is difficult to disagree with Alston (unless one happens to be part of the remaining 6%). However, if universal service is defined in social access terms of affordability and accessibility further dimensions are added beyond penetration percentages (See Cutler, 1990; Barr, 1985; Wilson and Goggin, 1993).
Community Service Obligations (CSOs) entered the discourse in 1988 with the reform of the GBEs:
Another essential agreement of the new arrangements is the separate identification and costing of Community Service Obligations(CSOs) and other non-commercial objectives which may have a bearing on the financial performance of an enterprise. Clearly the government expects some enterprises eg. Telecom and Australia Post to continue undertaking important CSOs. (Evans, 1988, 5).
CSO became the generic term used to apply to the non-profitable activities that would arguably experience market failure in a deregulated environment and therefore would not be voluntarily undertaken (Alston, 1990, 374). Consequently to maintain service levels to all sectors of society, the GBEs were required to undertake CSOs (Cutler, 1990). However, little provision appeared to be made for expanding existing services that previous policies failed to address adequately. Arguably, CSOs to marginalised groups of the community, such as people with disabilities, remained static. In addition the obligatory sense of the term on service providers obfuscated any notion of social investment that a more holistic definition could nurture. The position may be taken that CSOs are only liabilities when community value, which is empirically problematic to quantify, is ignored. Consequently it is argued that the term community service obligation minimised the social investment aspects of its function in the community. This is not surprising given that GBEs are framed by an economic rationalist discourse.
When he formed the GBEs, the Minister of the Department of Transport and Communications (DOTAC), Gareth Evans released a statement to the public, Reshaping the Transport and Communications Government Business Enterprises, explaining the new structures (Evans, 1988). The language throughout the paper by Gareth Evans reflects that of a business statement as indicated by the following phrases:
Australians have an important investment in the enterprises. As at June 1987 the Commonwealth investment through equity and loan, in these... businesses, was estimated at $9, 400 million or $1, 900 for every Australian household
The Transport and Communications enterprises need, more than ever before, flexibility and the ability to respond rapidly to changes in the market and to take up opportunities as they present themselves. (Evans, 1988, 3)
The new Corporation will be established with a commercially oriented financial structure and with the usual commercial obligations to pay appropriate dividends on shareholders funds while providing for future investment needs. (Evans, 1988, 22).
An emphasis on cost-efficiency and profit maximisation is evident throughout the document and the reference to the public as shareholders is reminiscent of Walsh's observations in the previous chapter.
As stated in chapter five, universal service did not appear in legislation until 1991. However the term was widely used among policy makers when discussing the standard telephone service (STS) (see Reinecke & Schultz, 1983). According to Cutler (1990, 405), it was politically significant that universal service was replaced by the less specific, more generic community service obligation. He described the nomenclature change as a ‘slippery semantic slide' which had ominous implications for social equity issues:
The semantic slippery slide from talk of all universal service to community service obligations, from citizens rights to public goods welfare costs, is neither accidental nor unimportant. The semantics of this debate reflect profound changes in conventional wisdom and in public policy priorities (Cutler, 1990, 405).
It is difficult not to agree with Cutler. CSOs were constructed to work within Government structures that now had cost-efficiency and profit maximisation as mandates. Consequently, although CSOs applied to non-commercial activities they were arguably framed by an economic rationalist discourse with commercial imperatives (See Cutler, 1990).
It is argued that the CSOs are framed by laissez-faire economic theories and function in the context of the deregulated environment of GBEs. Consequently, the words find meaning in an ideological framework and function under specific material conditions. Cutler was critical of the linguistic changes and what they imply for access and equity issues. The shift in terminology implied a strategic ideological shift in emphasis and, perhaps even entire meaning, of what was meant by the notion of universal service.
Paradoxically, the significant shift in meaning has not been noticed by most of the population who would probably use the two terms interchangeably according to Cutler (1990, 405). The public's failure to engage in the discussion in relation to universal service is indicative of a larger social problem of alienation from the political process:
Modern capitalism has seen the emergence of pragmatic, technocratic government, where the mass of the population have become alienated from a political system which has failed to maintain its own narrow self-defined objective of sustained economic growth...Technocrats have become policy advisers and policy makers (Barr, 1985, 224).
Barr implies that policy has been defined within the parameters of a technocratic discourse. The abundance of acronyms and vague terms such as universal service and community service obligations, appear to support his position. Arguably, the terms are used in a wider context than the purely technical and refers to a mode of thinking that approaches problems in a scientific manner. Science includes economics, psychological and social inquiry as well as the physical disciplines. Technocrats have been criticised for their insistence on the neutrality of science and failure to take a holistic approach to research as well as acknowledge their own cultural bias (See Barr, 1985; Habermas in Outhwaite, 1994; Ellul in Jones, 1995, 214-243).
One of the characteristics of a technocratic discourse is technical jargon and the extensive use of acronyms (economic rationalism, universal service, CSO). Technical jargon by its function, contracts discourse and is not readily understood by the public. Often, the public feel intimidated and uninformed by the used of complex terms. A lack of technical expertise may make the public reluctant to participate in community debates.
In 1990 as Shadow Communications Minister, Senator Alston appeared unequivocal about his intention to replace USO with CSOs operating on a commercial basis and he alluded to his intent in the title of his speech, ``Time For Some Real Competition: Is Telecom's Universal Service Obligation Still Relevant?'' (See Alston, 1990). Alston questioned the ambivalence that the Evans statement (1988) extended to notions of Universal Service and Community Service Obligations (Alston, 1990, 371). His criticism is significant because it was on the point of preserving the USO that Evans placed the validity of Telecom maintaining its monopoly carrier status (371). However, according to Alston by continuing USO objectives as a GBE the corporation faced an inherent contradiction in policy:
The primary obligation of the government's telecommunications policies will be ‘to ensure universal access to standard telephone services throughout Australia on an equitable basis and at affordable prices in recognition of the social importance of these services'. At the same time the Evans' Statement describes Telecom's community service obligations as a significant constraint, and identifies as a key question the manner in which universal service is to be maintained, whilst moving towards overall pricing structures that are consistent with economic and market imperatives of the emerging information economy (Alston, 1990, 370).
The problem was, as Alston indicated, universal service was difficult to justify with a GBE that had a mandate to be as cost efficient as possible. Alston alluded to the complex and expensive cross-subsidy arrangements which funded universal service. As discussed above, Alston doubted the value of, what he believed were, obsolete notions of the on-going objectives of universal service and its expensive cross-subsidy funding arrangements:
Whilst this might once have been a laudable and indeed necessary objective when the household penetration rate was 53 per cent in 1970, now that 94 per cent of Australian households have telephones its continued justification must be questioned; especially when households account for over 70 per cent of main lines although providing only 45 per cent of revenue. (Alston, 1990, 373)
The above narrow definition of universal service was cause for alarm by community groups seeking to maintain and extend the application of USOs (See Cutler, 1990; Reinecke and Schultz; Wilson and Goggin, 1993). In 1990, Alston argued that marginalised groups such as the poor, and people with disabilities should receive direct government subsidies to assist access. His main objective was to rearrange the elaborate cross-subsidy arrangement which underwrote the universal service:
A compromise solution could involve a mix of schemes with a continuation of some cross subsidies at a reduced level together with targeted assistance on a means tested basis (Alston, 1990, 383).
Alston's proposal may at first appear a suitable alternative. However according to some critics, the cross-subsidy scheme had the complexity of a living organism and to attempt to dismantle any part of it was to affect the function of the whole (Reinecke & Schultz, 1983, 9).
In addition, a direct subsidy for disadvantaged groups such as people with disability reinforces traditional charity discourses of provision. Instead of access to telecommunications service recognised as a right for all Australians, marginalised groups are made reliant on Government assistance packages. Consequently the selection of terms such as CSOs and USOs and the funding mechanisms to which they are linked can politically determine the basis that people can access the standard telephone service.
The term universal service obligation (USO) emerged in recent years and referred to the provision of a ``standard telephone service to all people in Australia'' which was a reiteration of the clause in the Telecommunications Acts (1991) and earlier acts (See Telecommunications Act 1975). Recent legislation and policy documents indicate that since becoming the Minister for Communications and the Arts, Senator Alston now accepts the term USO. Some of the latest evidence of the re-emergence of universal service in Alston's policies is revealed in his Discussion paper for Post 1997 Telecommunications Legislation (Alston, 1996, 17-18) and the Telecommunications Act (1997, S.149).
The reinstatement of USOs into the policy arena did not necessarily imply that Cutler misread the intention of politicians to control the discourse of telecommunications within an economic rationalist arena. Arguably, a CSO is framed by a laissez-faire, economic rationalist ideological context in which the USO is itself defined. In other words a USO has linguistically, functionally and ideologically become part of a CSO discourse. Again, it may be suggested that material conditions and social symbolic environments have constituted telecommunications policy.
The see-sawing use of terminology in the USO debate indicated that perhaps stronger manifestations of political power were stifling debate. Possible clues as to how public debate is controlled are described in Davies et al who infer from Shattschneider a procedure known as non-decision:
He (Shattschneider) argued that ‘all forms of political organisation have a bias in favour of the exploitation of some kinds of conflict and the suppression of others because organization is the mobilization of bias. Some issues are organized into politics while others are organized out (1990, 117).
Many were critical of the vague definitions surrounding USOs and CSOs regarding the extent of their application (See Wilson and Goggin, 1993; Cutler, 1990) Arguably, politicians employed tactics of non-decision and limited the debate of the wider implications of social access and equity from the community. As discussed above, equitable social dimensions do not fit easily into the policies of profit-oriented enterprises.
From a review of universal service definitions from the past it is argued that the subject was vague. Most reference to its meaning was implicit in telecommunications discourse and the term was not explicitly explained. As Cutler observed:
There is, however, less agreement as to just how universal service might be defined at any point in time... There is much talk of community service obligations, but first we should consider community service objectives. The dynamic, changing nature of community service objectives was recognised at a recent Australian forum organised by the Commission for the Future (Cutler, 1990, 408-409).
As Cutler observes part of the confusion from definitions resides in the dynamic nature of universal service. A state of flux results in part from its organic links to a scientific discourse which itself is in a constant state of change due to technological advances. It also results from changing community needs and opportunities that are offered by new technologies which were denied to some in the past. People with disabilities represent one such group. According to HREOC (1995), Telstra misinterpreted the meaning of universal service obligation its defence at the HREOC inquiry as discussed in Chapter eleven As mentioned in the beginning of this work, Telstra believed that its service was limited to the responsibility to provide a standard product not a service.
The Consumers' Telecommunications Network have provided perhaps the most comprehensive investigation into the community implications of a universal telecommunication service. They also were critical of the lack of adequate definition of terms. According to CTN, the inadequate definition resulted in the exclusion of a number of groups from equitable access to telephone services. Among them were people with disabilities (Wilson & Goggin, 1993).
This chapter has argued that technocratic and laissez-faire discourses shaped the definition of terms such as universal service and community service obligation. In addition, it has argued that the meaning of terms is not fixed but continually evolves in a dynamic sense from the contributions of social actors, dominant theories and macro-policy environments. Definitions and terms have also been criticised for their inadequate inclusion of equitable access provisions to telecommunications services for people with disabilities. Similarly, the funding mechanisms that are linked to social policies of equitable access to telecommunications have a politicising effect on consumers. Arguably, direct government subsidies reinforce charity discourses of disability in contrasted to the USO mechanism funded by the cross-subsidy arrangements. Consequently, material and symbolic environments may again be observed to have mutually constituted telecommunications policy for people with disabilities.