EU Institutions Agree Provisionally on Net Neutrality Rules
EU governments and lawmakers forged a deal on net neutrality rules in the wee hours of Tuesday, the Council said in a statement. The text wasn't available, but the Council said it will require that access providers treat all traffic equally. Reasonable traffic management will be allowed, as will blocking or throttling in limited circumstances such as to counter cyberattacks and prevent traffic congestion, it said. Agreements for services that require a specific quality level will be permitted, but providers will have to ensure the general quality of Internet access, it said. The draft agreement, which also includes new rules on mobile roaming fees, must be approved by the Council and European Parliament. It won cheers from one telecom regulator and Internet telephony services providers, and less enthusiasm from digital rights activists and consumers.
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On the "very sensitive issue" of net neutrality, negotiators reached a satisfactory solution, said Digital Economy and Society Commissioner Günther Oettinger on a webcast news briefing. There will be quality standards for everyone on the Internet that access providers will have to comply with, he said. Applications such as IPTV won't be allowed to detract from the quality of service received by general users, and exceptions to net neutrality will be allowed only for services in the public interest such as emergency calls, he said.
This "was not an easy negotiation," said European Parliament Industry, Research and Energy Committee Chairman Jerzy Buzek, of Poland and the European People's Party (EPP). It won't offer full satisfaction to everyone, said Member of Parliament Pilar del Castillo, of Spain and the EPP, author of the legislative response to the European Commission's original telecom single market proposal. One issue -- whether to allow blocking for parental tools and spam filters -- proved so controversial that negotiators agreed to give EU countries a transition period to enact their own laws on such activities, said Buzek.
"The EU will have the strongest and most comprehensive open Internet rules in the world, complete with strong end-user rights to ensure that subscribers get what they pay for," the European Commission said. The rules will take effect across all countries when the text becomes official April 30, it said.
There will be no paid prioritization of any content or service or category of content or service, an EC Digital Single Market spokeswoman told us. Day-to-day traffic management needs will be based on justified technical requirements and must be independent of the origin or destination of the traffic, she said. National regulators will be able to intervene in cases of distorting traffic management but also against commercial practices that would frustrate or distort end-users' rights to access or distribute content and services, she said. Innovative services such as IPTV and telemedicine "may only be offered where optimised quality is necessary for their requirements and if sufficient capacity for Internet access remain available," she emailed.
The text has some "best points," such as that an open Internet is safeguarded with "wide and fundamental wording" despite the lack of explicit reference to the term net neutrality," telecom consultant Innocenzo Genna wrote on his blog. Network management practices are clearly regulated, he said. There are also gray areas, such as how to apply the rule requiring ISPs to offer unrestricted best-effort services before they provide any managed services, he said. The nature of ordinary best-effort Internet may vary depending on the deployment of networks and related technology, country by country, he said. National regulators will have to find solutions on a case-by-case basis, with possible judicial rulings by the European Court of Justice, said Genna, who advises smaller players. "I foresee plenty of litigation."
The compromise is "chaotic," said European Digital Rights Executive Director Joe McNamee. The big issue for EDRi is the definition of specialized services which, "in the chaos of the agreement is not a definition and does not mention 'specialised services,'" he emailed. Among other problems, Parliament suggested access providers be allowed to offer a "fast lane" only if it was "indispensable," but the compromise changed that to "necessary," and a draft explanatory recital defines necessary so broadly that anything that isn't paid prioritization of traffic could in principle be covered, he said.
"What Europe is essentially saying here is that all internet data is born equal, but some is more equal than others," said European Consumer Organisation Director General Monique Goyens in a statement. It's good that ISPs will now have to treat traffic equally, but "safeguards against the impact of 'specialised services' are not strong enough," she said. French citizen's advocacy group La Quadrature du Net called the deal "third-rate," saying it omits a definition of, and fails to clearly enshrine, the concept of net neutrality.
The policy agreement "marks the first step toward achieving Europe's digital agenda," said French telecom regulator ARCEP (Autorité de Régulation des Communications électroniques et des Postes). French legislation on the digital economy will put in place provisions from the European text, particularly those that will allow ARCEP to guarantee net neutrality, it said.
The U.K. Internet Telephony Services Providers' Association praised the text for banning the blocking of VoIP services. ITSPA, which represents network operators and over-the-top players, said it had worried that the European Parliament was "leaning towards an extreme net-neutrality position that would have prevented effective management of the Internet." The deal is a "sensible compromise" that will keep the Internet open but let network operators manage their networks efficiently and develop new services, said Chairman Eli Katz. Computer and Communications Industry Association Europe Vice President James Waterworth said the new rules are welcome but "will only be worth something if effectively supervised" by national regulators. "This will be the critical next step," he added.