“Do We Need Net Neutrality in Europe?”
by Narine Khachatryan
The workshop “Do We Need Net Neutrality in Europe?” brought together seven panelists from diverse professional backgrounds to the European Dialog on Internet Governance organised in Stockholm (Sweden) on June 14 and 15, 2012.
Frédéric Donck, Director of the European Regional Bureau of the Internet Society, opened the discussion on net neutrality (NN) and network management by posing two key questions: Do we have effective competition in Europe, and if so, can transparency safeguard the openness of the Internet? While stressing that the Internet should remain open, he emphasized that any network management practices should be performed in a highly transparent manner and should not lead to anti-competitive behavior.
Amelia Andersdotter, Member of the European Parliament, highlighted that in many parts of Europe users can rely only on the “fair treatment” of a single infrastructure or service provider.
Daniel Pataki, representing the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association, argued that additional regulation at EU or national level restricting network management and new business models would limit consumer choice, undermine innovation, and hamper investment. He stated that operators should be allowed to manage traffic to avoid congestion, while consumers should have the option to choose differentiated services tailored to their needs. According to him, such differentiated offers are essential for high-speed networks and innovative services requiring guaranteed end-to-end quality of delivery, such as IPTV or e-health.
Göran Marby, Board Member of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, noted that the Internet has evolved rapidly because its development has been driven by regular users. He stated that business models have changed over time and that citizens should now “vote with their own feet,” while regulators need to ensure competition.
Jean-Jacques Sahel from Microsoft (Skype) explained that the end-to-end principle of the Internet should be preserved to allow users the greatest possible access to online content, applications, and services of their choice. He added that traffic management practices should be restricted to exceptional security-related reasons, such as managing congestion.
Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net, took a similar position, arguing that any discrimination against end-users’ Internet connections can lead to anti-competitive practices and should not be allowed. He stressed that discrimination in communications undermines freedom of expression and other fundamental freedoms and can stifle innovation. Referring to data collected by La Quadrature du Net, he stated that citizens in more than half of EU Member States have experienced communication restrictions and that operators increasingly use deep packet inspection—an extremely invasive technology comparable to that used for political censorship.
Narine Khachatryan, from the Media Education Center, Armenia, explained that if Net Neutrality is not protected, there will be different levels of access to media content, depending primarily on people’s ability to pay. Economic barriers to digital media platforms can exclude many people from a considerable proportion of online information, while access to a plurality of sources of information on diverse media platforms is a precondition for the development of users’ competences: critical thinking skills, content creation capacity, and social communication skills. She emphasized that the capacity to process information nowadays is becoming unequal between people in developed and developing countries, and that new barriers to various media platforms can further isolate people and restrict them in communicating information and knowledge to others.
Oskar Jonsson from the Swedish Institute of Assistive Technology put the focus on social alarms, a service aimed at handling elderly care. Social alarms use the open standard SIP for VoIP, sending alarms and heartbeats every minute for functionality monitoring. He told that telecom operators in Sweden are allowed to block social alarms using SIP in favor of telecom operators’ telephone routing business. Saying that even elderly people who do not have computers need open access to the Internet, Oskar asked everybody whether elderly and vulnerable people in Europe, or taxpayers in general, need a cheap or an expensive solution.
Finally, the example of the Netherlands’ new net neutrality law was discussed. Under this legislation, access providers are prohibited from charging extra for specific host-to-host services, while telecom operators argue that fair compensation for carried traffic must still be ensured.
Find more at the EuroDIG web site..
Originally written by Narine Khachatryan for the workshop “Do We Need Net Neutrality in Europe?” (2012).
