European Internet Players Differ on How to Guarantee Net Neutrality

The EC published a net neutrality questionnaire to spark debate and get input for a report due to the European Parliament and the European Council this year. Among other things, it asked whether there’s a net neutrality problem in Europe, whether one may come up and whether existing regulations are adequate to deal with any issues identified. Other questions delved into the need for and use of network traffic management and prioritization, when national regulatory authorities might have to impose quality-of-service requirements, and how to make network management more transparent for consumers.

The EC received a “considerable number of responses” and is expecting more, a spokeswoman for Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes told us. The EC takes satisfaction that the comments came from a wide range of stakeholders that includes individuals, telecom operators, broadcasting companies, and other businesses of all sizes, she said. Kroes will publish the results in the upcoming report, the spokeswoman said.

One key disagreement between network operators on the one hand and broadcasters and digital rights supporters on the other is whether net neutrality is an issue. Recent discussions have focused on solving a “problem that does not exist in the EU,” and a concept that hasn’t been clearly defined, said the European Internet Services Providers’ Association. Instead of worrying about Internet openness and neutrality, authorities should continue monitoring market changes that may hold back Internet innovation, it said.

Maintaining an open Internet doesn’t require new prescriptive rules governing traffic management, AT&T said, citing the preliminary view of the U.K. Office of Communications. Market failures can be handled by national regulators, it said. There’s no evidence of such failure or of anticompetitive practices by an individual actor that couldn’t be resolved quickly under existing regulations and procedures, the telco said.

As long as consumers have a choice between competing broadband providers, the risk of network services’ becoming a bottleneck that might threaten the openness or neutral nature of the Internet is mitigated, said the European Competitive Telecommunications Association. Consumers faced with restricted access will vote with their feet, it said. The EU’s pre-emptive regulatory regime for e-communications services underpins competition by requiring access and nondiscrimination by dominant players, said the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association. Such “ex ante” safeguards are unknown in the U.S., where net neutrality is most hotly debated, it said.

The European Broadcasting Union worried that public broadcasting services might be affected by discriminatory behavior on the part of network operators that have an incentive to degrade services because of network congestion and traffic management practices, it said. Competition in the fixed and mobile broadband markets isn’t strong enough yet, so there’s a “strong case for regulatory intervention” to protect net neutrality, the EBU said.

Net neutrality breaches are already happening, said European Digital Rights and Dutch advocacy group Bits of Freedom. The end-to-end principle of the Internet is compromised by ISPs with the technology to distinguish among kinds of traffic and by increasingly vertically integrated service providers with the motive and opportunity to throttle and block traffic that directly competes with their own services, they said. ISPs are failing to invest in bandwidth and using high over-booking factors, they said. ISPs also face growing pressure from governments and private parties to stifle the Internet, and they are going along with that, they said.

Network management is “indispensable,” ETNO said. The ability of network operators to provide managed services is key to keeping broadband as a platform for innovation, it said. Future services requiring a managed quality-of-service environment, such as telemedicine, cloud computing or 3D TV, will complement Internet access offers to consumers and businesses, it said.

The key to traffic management is ensuring that customers are given enough information to allow them to choose among offerings, EuroISPA said. Network management may mean prioritizing voice calls, including VoIP, but that’s part of the competitive process, it said. Operators should be free to offer varying service and price levels, ECTA said. To prevent the traffic of consumers who opt for minimum levels from being relegated to a “dirt road,” national regulators should be able to impose minimum service levels, as a consumer safety net, it said. But EDRI and Bits of Freedom said it’s not easy for consumers to switch between providers, because most vertically integrated European ISPs offer triple-play packages, because often switching leaves users unconnected for days at a time, and because consumers face losing their e-mail addresses when they change providers.

Managed services could be offered above and beyond the public Internet, said the EBU. If they're provided on the same network, there’s a risk that network capacity and investments will be diverted from the public Internet toward managed services that are more profitable to network operators, it said. Rules may be needed to ensure that such services don’t harm other offerings of general interest, it said.

Waiting to see if net neutrality problems surface “is not an option,” Edri and Bits of Freedom said. The open Internet is already under severe threat and ISPs can be expected to do everything in their power to delay regulation, said the digital rights groups. The EC should enact narrowly tailored rules barring ISPs from degrading, blocking, discriminating against or slowing types of traffic, they said. The only possible exceptions should be to let end-users decide what content they want to send and receive, and how, and to preserve the integrity and security of networks and services, they said.