There's a telling analysis of Universal Service (and Universal Access) programs around the globe that was done last year by Intelcom Research (potentially biased as it was paid for by the GSM Association). The report is here http://www.gsmworld.com/documents/universal_access_full_report.pdf . My summary http://blogs.nmss.com/communications/2006/10/mobile_networks.html is: these programs are broken in almost every country where they have been instituted (Uganda and Columbia are rare exceptions).