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Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

juliareda.eu

41–50 of 181 posts

Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision." I think you're missing the implication of the point. If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality. Customers don't have to be aware…

> If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality. Can you explain this further? I struggle to see how you get from "a lot of competition" to "de-facto net neutrality", and how that would continue indefinitely. It seems to me that we had de-facto net neutrality from the outset but that over time, as the industry ma…

Because it would be very difficult for carriers to co-opt entities like Netflix into nonstandard schemes if there were a lot of competition.

You hinted at it in your comment: "the large players started to talk about colluding"

Only a when there are a 'small number of large players' is this kind of collusion possible.

When there is a lot of competition, the entire layer of the value chain becomes weaker.

It's a problem because they control a scarce resource: the airwaves, and also a kind of scarce resource: access rights for fibre etc..

Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

#42
post #26

Next fight : That ISPs advertise the minimum guaranteed bandwidth and are banned from advertising the maximum theoretical number. Then only we could measure that they do offer the same bandwidth with Netflix and Vimeo as they advertise. Net neutrality at its best. Edit: Of course the number will be very low because they have to (God forbid!) provision their network to serve this bandwidth to all customers during peak…

Unfortunately they can't guarantee, if I create a website with some crap provider, they can't guarantee a GBps link. A better idea would be to have non discriminatory bridge with any provider. Also it is mostly a US problem, where capitalism is the way, but ironically ISPs have no competition.

Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

#45
For your convenience, here's just the text "in the boxes" (the Recitals), from http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/...

These are the first 9, the other 10 are here: https://gist.github.com/daveloyall/a1112bb70412d77bebc809090...

Recital 1 =========

This Regulation aims to establish common rules to safeguard equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of internet access services and related end-users’ rights. It aims to protect end-users and simultaneously to guarantee the continued functioning of the internet ecosystem as an engine of innovation.

Recital 2 =========

The measures provided for in this Regulation respect the principle of technological neutrality, that is to say they neither impose nor discriminate in favour of the use of a particular type of technology.

Recital 3 =========

The internet has developed over the past decades as an open platform for innovation with low access barriers for end-users, providers of content, applications and services and providers of internet access services. The existing regulatory framework aims to promote the ability of end-users to access and distribute information or run applications and services of their choice. However, a significant number of end-users are affected by traffic management practices which block or slow down specific applications or services. Those tendencies require common rules at the Union level to ensure the openness of the internet and to avoid fragmentation of the internal market resulting from measures adopted by individual Member States.

Recital 4 =========

An internet access service provides access to the internet, and in principle to all the end-points thereof, irrespective of the network technology and terminal equipment used by end-users. However, for reasons outside the control of providers of internet access services, certain end points of the internet may not always be accessible. Therefore, such providers should be deemed to have complied with their obligations related to the provision of an internet access service within the meaning of this Regulation when that service provides connectivity to virtually all end points of the internet. Providers of internet access services should therefore not restrict connectivity to any accessible end-points of the internet.

Recital 5 =========

When accessing the internet, end-users should be free to choose between various types of terminal equipment as defined in Commission Directive 2008/63/EC (1). Providers of internet access services should not impose restrictions on the use of terminal equipment connecting to the network in addition to those imposed by manufacturers or distributors of terminal equipment in accordance with Union law.

Recital 6 =========

End-users should have the right to access and distribute information and content, and to use and provide applications and services without discrimination, via their internet access service. The exercise of this right should be without prejudice to Union law, or national law that complies with Union law, regarding the lawfulness of content, applications or services. This Regulation does not seek to regulate the lawfulness of the content, applications or services, nor does it seek to regulate the procedures, requirements and safeguards related thereto. Those matters therefore remain subject to Union law, or national law that complies with Union law.

Recital 7 =========

In order to exercise their rights to access and distribute information and content and to use and provide applications and services of their choice, end-users should be free to agree with providers of internet access services on tariffs for specific data volumes and speeds of the internet access service. Such agreements, as well as any commercial practices of providers of internet access services, should not limit the exercise of those rights and thus circumvent provisions of this Regulation safeguarding open internet access. National regulatory and other competent authorities should be empowered to intervene against agreements or commercial practices which, by reason of their scale, lead to situations where end-users’ choice is materially reduced in practice. To this end, the assessment of agreements and commercial practices should, inter alia, take into account the respective market positions of those providers of internet access services, and of the providers of content, applications and services, that are involved. National regulatory and other competent authorities should be required, as part of their monitoring and enforcement function, to intervene when agreements or commercial practices would result in the undermining of the essence of the end-users’ rights.

Recital 8 =========

When providing internet access services, providers of those services should treat all traffic equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, independently of its sender or receiver, content, application or service, or terminal equipment. According to general principles of Union law and settled case-law, comparable situations should not be treated differently and different situations should not be treated in the same way unless such treatment is objectively justified.

Recital 9 =========

The objective of reasonable traffic management is to contribute to an efficient use of network resources and to an optimisation of overall transmission quality responding to the objectively different technical quality of service requirements of specific categories of traffic, and thus of the content, applications and services transmitted. Reasonable traffic management measures applied by providers of internet access services should be transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and should not be based on commercial considerations. The requirement for traffic management measures to be non-discriminatory does not preclude providers of internet access services from implementing, in order to optimise the overall transmission quality, traffic management measures which differentiate between objectively different categories of traffic. Any such differentiation should, in order to optimise overall quality and user experience, be permitted only on the basis of objectively different technical quality of service requirements (for example, in terms of latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth) of the specific categories of traffic, and not on the basis of commercial considerations. Such differentiating measures should be proportionate in relation to the purpose of overall quality optimisation and should treat equivalent traffic equally. Such measures should not be maintained for longer than necessary.

Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

#46
post #26

Next fight : That ISPs advertise the minimum guaranteed bandwidth and are banned from advertising the maximum theoretical number. Then only we could measure that they do offer the same bandwidth with Netflix and Vimeo as they advertise. Net neutrality at its best. Edit: Of course the number will be very low because they have to (God forbid!) provision their network to serve this bandwidth to all customers during peak…

That's not likely going to happen nore is it a sensible thing to ask for. As an ISP how would you _guarantee_ the bandwidth for each endpoint? You would have to provision for the maximal capacity all over your network. Given that most people only utilize their channel 1% of the time, this is a huge waste! What's sensible to ask ISPs to do is: (a) Communicate historically experienced bandwith at each region (b) Provid…

At the moment at least in Germany you have ISPs advertising bandwidths and even selling contracts with bandwidth that can never be reached not because they don't have the capacity but because it's not possible to reach them given the technology in the ground.

We're currently in place that is completely unacceptable towards customers. Now you don't have to go completely in the other direction but when you advertise and sell someone a contract involving a certain amount of bandwidth, you should have to provide that 99% of the time modulo schedule downtime. I think that would be perfectly achievable and fair to ISPs and it wouldn't require them to provision for maximal capacity either. I mean it's not like you should be able to sue them into the ground when they only manage 89.9999% or something.

Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

#47

I don't understand how it's "progress" to move decisions from a small number of bureaucracies to a single, less accountable bureaucracy.

The EU is accountable, democratic and transparent (more transparent than some countries, like Germany, within the EU anyway).

Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

#48
post #44

Any victory for socialist "Net Neutrality" is a loss for Internet Freedom.

This is supposed to be about keeping the medium itself impartial.

When we converse in person, the medium (air) doesn't discriminate. Let's have a 'Net like that.

What are you talking about?

Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

#49
post #26

Next fight : That ISPs advertise the minimum guaranteed bandwidth and are banned from advertising the maximum theoretical number. Then only we could measure that they do offer the same bandwidth with Netflix and Vimeo as they advertise. Net neutrality at its best. Edit: Of course the number will be very low because they have to (God forbid!) provision their network to serve this bandwidth to all customers during peak…

You can get a guarantee right now. It's called an SLA. It costs money. There are negotiated terms for what happens in the case the SLA is not met.

Re: Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe

#50
"It has to be noted with regret that it was not our digital Commissioner Günther Oettinger who listened to the people and defended an internet not biased towards big corporate interests [...]"

That would hardly have been expected: in the first six months of being a Commissioner, Oettinger met with two NGO representatives but with 44 corporate lobbyists [1].

[1] http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/guenther-oettinger...

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