Regulatory Competition and Accountability: Comparing Universal Service in Telecommunications in Australia and Taiwan

The recent trend of transforming regulatory bureaus into independent agencies has raised concerns over accountability once the regulator is cut loose from political control. There is also concern that the promotion of public values may be at risk when the regulatory function is outsourced to a mission-limited independent agency. To find possible solutions to these problems, this study compares the provision of telecommunications universal service in Australia with that in Taiwan to determine how different accountability designs lead to different means of ensuring universal service provision. Following a detailed investigation, this article finds that the consumer sovereignty model used in Australia performs better than the fiduciary trusteeship model in Taiwan in constraining the capture of the regulator by the dominant carrier. Overall, the author argues that, as a social goal, ensuring universal service should rely on both a politically mandated institution and competing regulatory agencies that accommodate different value groups so that a line is drawn between the social and commercial spheres.