The European Commission launched a public consultation on certain traffic management practices related to net neutrality, aiming at learning from the interested persons their opinions on the service quality, the technical and economic requirements and the possibility of the network liberty being hindered. The Commission wishes thus to establish whether the new regulations in the telecom field are sufficient to address such issues.
The consultation launched in June is open until 30 September 2010. All interested parties, i.e. services and content providers, consumers, businesses and researchers, are invited to respond to key questions arising from the issue of net neutrality – whether internet providers should be allowed to adopt certain traffic management practices, prioritising one kind of Internet traffic over another, whether such practices might have unfair effects for users or what are the limits of the EU intervention in view of ensuring fairness in the Internet market.
Launched upon the initiative of the European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, who overtly stated her commitment to keep the Internet open and neutral, the consultation will feed into a Commission report on net neutrality, which should be presented by the end of this year, and will express the Commission’s opinion on the need of certain additional initiatives or directions in the field.
“We invite both industry representatives and Internet end-users from Romania to respond to the consultation launched by the European Commission and express their points of view on the net neutrality issues. It is important to have as many respondents from our country as possible to ensure that their interests will be reflected in the regulations the Commission might propose after analysing the consultation results”, Catalin Marinescu, the President of ANCOM, stated.
In the context of the emergence of new technologies in the last years, such as voice over Internet protocol – VoIP, where voice calls can be conducted over the Internet, video streaming or IPTV services, Internet service providers have developed tools to differentiate between the various websites and applications being accessed over their network, promoting efficient use of the network – “traffic management” for the provision of premium services. These techniques may however have the effect of slowing down access to non-prioritised services or applications, on either a fixed or a mobile connection, or of degrading the quality of other services. Also, treating one stream of data differently from another may harm users and undermine the openness of the Internet.
In Romania, the ANCOM analyses show that, in the framework-contracts concluded with the end-users, Internet service providers usually specify the existence of access restrictions to VoIP applications as regards certain service packages. The end-users who acquire Internet services are advised to read carefully and integrally the contract they are about to conclude. On the other hand, pursuant to the ANC President’s Decision no.77/2009 on the obligations of informing the end-users, incumbent on the providers of publicly available electronic communications services, the providers are encouraged to make available to the public certain information on prices and applicable tariffs, as well as on the connection and service usage requirements.
Moreover, according to art.19 of Law no.304/2003 on Universal Service and users’ rights relating to the electronic communications networks and services, republished, the contracts between end-users and providers of publicly available electronic communications services must include a set of minimum requirements relating, among other, to the services provided, level of quality ensured and timeframe within which the initial connection is performed.
The consultation launched by the European Commission is accessible online, here, until 30 September 2010.
Background
Although there is no set definition of ‘net neutrality’, it is generally agreed that it represents the idea that all data on the internet should be treated equally, whatever its source or destination, communication content or type of service or application. This means that, in general, internet users should be able to access the content or application of their choice.
So far, the European Commission has not expressed an opinion on restricting or treating differently the VoIP traffic within the Internet access services, whereas the legislation currently in force does not forbid the Internet service providers to enforce such restrictions. According to the legal provisions, the providers have exclusively the obligation to inform their subscribers on the nature of the service to which they are subscribing, including traffic management procedures and their impact on service quality, as well as any other limitations imposed on the provided service.