The paper considers the issues of providing the Universal telecommunications service in Latvia, taking into account the peculiarities of development of economics and telecommunications infrastructure. According to the demands of the European Union, the Latvian government has to establish the Universal telecommunications service – a minimum set of services of a definite quality which will be available to all users at an affordable price, irrespectively of their geographical location. Under the conditions of a liberalized market, the main task of every entrepreneur is decreasing of costs and increasing of revenues. Owing to this, it is quite natural that entrepreneurs aspire to offer their services to those customers and in those regions, where it would be profitable. An operator would not provide its services to economically disadvantageous customers, if it did not have the corresponding obligations to do so. Therefore it is very important to solve the question of compensation of risk, which is involved in installation of new telephone lines in the underdeveloped regions of Latvia. In comparison with highly developed countries of the European Union, Latvia is characterized by a low penetration rate of telephone lines and varying penetration rates in urban and rural areas. Besides, a relatively large number of Latvian inhabitants are on the edge of poverty. Thus, introducing the Universal telecommunications service requires solving of many tasks and problems, which are formulated and examined in this work.