Defining and defending the USO
This week, we've been blogging on a couple of international conferences concerned with the postal business. Postwatch made a particular contribution to the session on "The role of the Universal Service Obligation".
Joost Vantomme, the Director for Regulatory Affairs at Belgian Post, spoke to the title "The preservation of the USO requires a legally certain and secure financing in case of the removal of the reserved area", while Almast Diedrich, Head of Public Affairs at TNT Post (the Dutch postal service) had as the title of his address "The USO is a commercial advantage for posts and needs no subsidy".
The speaker for Postwatch was our Council member for the Greater London Region, Roger Darlington. He was given the title: "How important is a USO in an age of multiple communication channels?" He suggested that implicit in the title given him was the suggestion that the widespread use of e-mail and the Internet meant that the current USO was no longer necessary. He pointed out, however, that in the UK:
Joost Vantomme, the Director for Regulatory Affairs at Belgian Post, spoke to the title "The preservation of the USO requires a legally certain and secure financing in case of the removal of the reserved area", while Almast Diedrich, Head of Public Affairs at TNT Post (the Dutch postal service) had as the title of his address "The USO is a commercial advantage for posts and needs no subsidy".
The speaker for Postwatch was our Council member for the Greater London Region, Roger Darlington. He was given the title: "How important is a USO in an age of multiple communication channels?" He suggested that implicit in the title given him was the suggestion that the widespread use of e-mail and the Internet meant that the current USO was no longer necessary. He pointed out, however, that in the UK:
- Some 39% of homes are not connected to the Internet.
- Older consumers are proportionately more likely not to be connected - only 30% of those aged over 65.
- Poorer consumers are proportionately more likely not to be connected - only 36% of low income households.
- Consumers with special needs have problems with use of the Net.
Labels: universal service obligation
posted by Postwatch at 11:26 am
3 Comments:
Absolutely disgusting, get these people out of here. Of course the USO is important and necessary, how dare Postcomm say it isn't. Businesses rely totally on the Post arriving, you can't send a small packet through the net can you.
So much for customer support. My mind is made up, Postcomm is here for bulk business providers only and thats it, everybody else can whistle.
Disgusting!!!
I think that you may have misread something, anonymous. Postcomm has a statutory duty to make the preservation of the USO its main priority. Similarly Postcomm attaches the greatest importance to the USO which is why we defended it at this conference.
Whats to stop the EU dismantling the USO to force the break up of the last part of state postal services and if the USO is to remain, who pays for it? Postcomm may uphold the USO but deregulation is driven from Europe. To my knowledge theres no actual end-game plan on this aspect from anywhere - no one actually knows.
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