EU Public Consultation on Net Neutrality

Scofflaw

The slightly laboriously titled "Public consultation on specific aspects of transparency, traffic management and switching in an Open Internet" is here: http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=NetNeutralityIndiv

Unusually, this is in survey format, so it's rather easier to give your opinion than in an open format consultation. The consultation is flagged on the Broadband forum, but I include it here because I regard net neutrality as an important political issue.

The issues involved are:

Traffic management

Traffic management is the term used to describe a wide range of technical practices undertaken to manage traffic across networks, which includes prioritization, slowing down, throttling or blocking of certain data packets. There seems to be consensus that traffic management is a legitimate tool to effectively protect the security and integrity of networks, to restrict the transmission to end-users of unsolicited communication (e.g. spam) or to give effect to a legislative provision or court order.

It is also widely understood that certain traffic management techniques are involved in the provision of "managed/specialised services"[1] (that provide a generally guaranteed quality of service and a strict admission control). This questionnaire focuses on cases where traffic management is applied by ISPs for such purposes, or for other contractual or operational purposes such as congestion management, the enforcement of contractual restrictions etc. Furthermore, BEREC's traffic management investigation showed that a number of traffic management techniques are actually applied by ISPs.
For instance, ISPs commonly apply certain traffic management practices in order to avoid or manage traffic congestion in a network. Traffic management is also sometimes deployed to provide a guaranteed quality of service for "managed services", for example IP-TV, video on demand (VoD), etc. Another issue is that traffic management often involves monitoring practices that may raise privacy concerns. The following questions ask for additional information regarding these traffic management techniques.

That is, traffic management involves the ISP deciding on the priority of your request, to do which they may have to look at what you're requesting. So this is a privacy issue.

2. Transparency and switching (consumer choice)

Transparency is a key tool in the EU electronic communications framework to protect users and to ensure competition. Transparency enables consumers to optimise their informed choices and thus benefit fully from competition, in particular at a time when ISPs are developing new business models.

The BEREC investigation has revealed that many consumers have Internet access subscriptions with a number of restrictions. Moreover, the development of new business models is likely to lead to a broad range of offers which may contain different traffic management restrictions. These may address the needs or interests of specific consumers at prices which might not otherwise be available. It is, however, not clear whether ISPs are sufficiently transparent about such restrictions allowing consumers to make a deliberate choice. Customers, therefore, need clear, meaningful and comparable information on any limitations of their subscriptions comprehensible to all.

These requirements raise the question whether a restricted Internet access product may still be described, without qualification, as "Internet access" or whether the unqualified label "Internet access" should be reserved to (largely) unrestricted access offers. This debate has already been opened in some Member States and this public consultation seeks also views on this issue. Another aspect of transparency concerns broadband speed, and in particular possible discrepancies between advertised speeds and actual speeds.

Transparency should be complemented with measures aimed at ensuring easy switching from one provider to another, and from one offer to another offer of the same service provider, to empower consumers to choose the service which best matches their individual needs. The electronic communications framework facilitates switching of operators by imposing the obligation to implement number portability within one day, by limiting the initial commitment period in contracts with consumers or by specifying that the conditions and procedures for contract termination shall not act as a disincentive against changing service provider. It further specifies that subscribers have a right to withdraw from their contract without penalty upon notice of modification to the contractual conditions. It is also important to ensure that barriers do not arise as a result of the growing trend towards bundled services. This may require that switching processes and contractual arrangements are consistent between services offered in bundled packages, e.g. the most common "triple play" package of fixed voice, broadband and pay-TV.

In brief, that's the question of whether you should know what traffic restrictions your ISP may place on your access, and how those should be described in order for you to easily compare ISP packages.

Hope that's of interest - consultation closes 15th October. if you have any technical questions, feel free to ask, although you may get better answers on the Broadband forum.

cordially,
Scofflaw