In 1994 South Africa’s new democratic government embraced universal access and service
(UAS) as the centrepiece of telecommunications policy. International best practice for
UAS had been developed and promoted under the growing hegemony of an international
telecommunications reform regime from the mid-1980s. Its implementation in South
Africa has been widely criticised. However, examining the track record through the
heuristic lens of McConnell’s policy success and failure framework provides a more
nuanced assessment of the relative effectiveness of this policy shift. The implementation
of the new UAS policies between 1994 and 2014 is documented, analysed and
interrogated, examining the effectiveness of the process, the success of the programmatic
implementation, and the political outcomes. Under each aspect the outcomes appear at
best mixed. Nevertheless, a long-term fundamental paradigm shift in the landscape of
telecommunications policy has resulted, suggesting that theoretical and practical questions
of policy success and failure may need further examination.