Universal service

Universal service guarantees effective postal services for everybody

Universal service means services considered as staple commodities which every consumer and company must have access to. The content of universal service with regard to postal services is laid down in the Postal Act.

The objective of the regulation of the universal service is to ensure basic postal services for consumers in a reasonable price and under equal terms.

According to the Postal Act, the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority shall impose on one or several postal undertakings an obligation to provide universal services if it seems essential for securing universal services on the basis of market assessments. A universal service obligation can be imposed on an undertaking until the license of the undertaking terminates.

The procedure to be followed in choosing the universal service provider is a comparison which involves ranking the postal undertakings located in a specific geographic area according to the selection criteria regarding the goals of the Postal Act. Based on the comparison, the postal undertaking that best meets the criteria will be chosen as the universal service provider.

For more detailed information on the selection of universal service providers, go to FICORA's website for experts (in Finnish).