EU Commissioner: I Will End Net Neutrality Waiting Game

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from ZDNet: "Europeans are a step closer to seeing new net neutrality rules put in place, after the release of an EU regulators' report on how often ISPs and operators throttle their services. On Tuesday, digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes said the release of the report from by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) means she will make recommendations to the EU on preserving net neutrality, which aims to make sure ISPs do not unfairly restrict customers from accessing the service or application or their choice. 'BEREC has today provided the data I was waiting for (PDF). For most Europeans, their internet access works well most of the time. But these findings show the need for more regulatory certainty and that there are enough problems to warrant strong and targeted action to safeguard consumers,' Kroes said in a statement. 'Given that BEREC's findings highlight a problem of effective consumer choice, I will prepare recommendations to generate more real choices and end the net neutrality waiting game in Europe,' she added."

Comments

Under what definition of "unfair?"

[betterunixthanunix]

Let me guess -- ISPs cannot restrict access to websites in order to profit, but governments can order ISPs to restrict access to websites to protect the profits of entertainment companies?

Re:Under what definition of "unfair?"

[eggstasy]

I think you're confusing us with America. The US produces almost all the (mass-market) content in the world and, well, Europe is composed of 45 countries. The EU is not a cohesive country either - there's 27 of us. We all have different laws and we're bound together by separate treaties, most of which only include parts of Europe, some which even include non-EU countries. The Euro zone (common currency) is one thing, the Schengen space (freedom of travel) is another one, etc.

It's very very complicated - but we're not a federation and what the bureaucrats do in Brussels is largely their problem. We're hardly ever *forced* to agree - the guy did say "reccomendation". We generally agree on implementing reccomendations when the public supports it. I believe this will be the case with Net Neutrality, and France can go on pretending it's still a major power in the world, and that we all give a damn about what it does.

The vast majority of countries in Europe do not have opressive ISP policies or draconian copyright law enforcement, so the whole net neutrality thing won't even register on our radar.

(I'm not a politician, so I could be wrong on the whole EU thing)

Re:Under what definition of "unfair?"

[damienl451]

As I understand it, she will make recommendations to the EU commission, who will in turn draft a Directive. If adopted, a Directive is binding on all member states, which have a few years to change their national legislation to reflect what the Directive says.

The waiting game is finally over!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood got back to us, and said we couldn't do it.

Will NN guidelines include censorship?

[cpu6502]

"You cannot block any website...... except pornography. Or bittorrent sites. Those you can block and in fact, we DEMAND you block them."

Re:Will NN guidelines include censorship?

[Spad]

Net Neutrality is not really anything to do with censorship, it's about ensuring that - for example - Google doesn't pay your ISP to prioritise all Google.com traffic over other search engines or that BSkyB doesn't pay them to cripple access to the BBC News site while leaving Sky News untouched.

I'm not in favour of censorship for any reason, but it's not helpful to conflate it with net neutrality.

Re:Will NN guidelines include censorship?

[Charliemopps]

um, no, you're wrong... well, I suppose that was a VERY early concern, but it hasn't arisen. What's actually happening is your ISP has installed enough equipment to deliver a certain amount of bandwidth to your "neighborhood" for lack of a better layman word. When everyone in the neighborhood gets home and jumps on whatever the latest craze is, lets say netflix, bandwidth spikes. Netflix has no incentive to make their service intelligent in anyway... for example, they could give you a discount if you queue up a movie a couple of days ahead of time and you could download it at off peak times to lower congestion. But, like I was saying, they have no reason to do this. So the ISP is instead, putting a cap on how much data can pass to netflix during peak hours so people who aren't using it can still at least browse the internet. The ISP wants to just flat out charge netflix for hurting their infrastructure. But that will only work for a couple of large ISPs. Netflix will likely ignore anyone that's not ATT or Verizon. So the ISPs want the government to make some kind of law that forces these content providers to incur some kind of cost when they do not do things efficiently.

Now, you may disagree with all of what the ISPs are doing... but those are the facts. I personally think they are being rather short sited. They keep increasing the max speed you can get "30MB DSL to your door!!!" and they are thinking that you'll rarely ever use that. You think you have this blazing fast connection, and as long as you only use it to download files now and then you do. But where I think the world is headed is all customers using all of their bandwidth all of the time. They haven't invent the service yet that does that... netflix does it, but only when you're watching a movie... but someone, somewhere is going to come up with something that does use all of your bandwidth all of the time... and it will be the new in thing... and then what will the ISPs do?

When it comes down to it, we've been paying too little for our internet connections, and we've been lied to by the ISPs in regards to how fast those connections really are. Look at the price of a true 1.5mb T1 line compared to the same speed DSL line and you'll get the idea. We're in for higher prices and lower speeds in the future and that's a fact.

Best Country

[arisvega]

See? Europe is the best country in the world.

USA! Wait... Home of the...?

[killfixx]

I've been trying to wrap my head around this for some time now.

As the internet becomes more important for global commercial and cultural enrichment, the US insists on stripping away rights and freedoms that we, as Americans, have come to cherish.

And 99%* of Americans couldn't possibly care less. (*hyperbole)

Yet, the more restrictive and draconian our policies become, the more that the EU seems to protecting these rights.

The only reason I can see is that Americans have a different societal outlook. Americans value possession (having stuff) above all else.
It's all about our stuff. We are the pre-schoolers (kindergarten, etc...) of global politics. Both literally (youngest 1st world country) and figuratively (we are the whiniest bunch of brats). How many Americans can name 5 neighbors (different households)? How many Americans still eat a weekly meal with non-nuclear family members?

I love America, (it's where I keep all my stuff) but enough is enough. I'm seriously considering emigrating. I live in New England and from what I've seen and read, northern Europe (Denmark, Finland, Norway, etc...) all seem to have "similar" weather and significantly better socio-political climates.

This country needs a serious re-tuning. Not sure how or by who, but please let it be for the better.

Re:USA! Wait... Home of the...?

[interkin3tic]

We separated from England because we didn't get a vote on taxes, yet didn't give most of our citizens the right to vote. We decided we weren't going to be a colony anymore, then went about making our own colonies (and were much more parasitic about it than the English). We prided ourselves on self-sustinence and freedom yet had slave labor long past the point where most other civilized countries had abolished it. And from the outset there were innumerable screwings-over of the previous inhabitants.

It's not like we've only -recently- become hypocrites.

Re:USA! Wait... Home of the...?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, but keep in mind that in europe the culture is different, the role of the government is far bigger than here (as well as taxes), an europeans like it.

For example, an average employee in Germany pays more than 40% of his/her income in taxes. Of course they have public healthcare, a generous public pension system, etc... and nobody (not even the conservative parties) wants to privatize them, that's not the kind of "freedom" that they like.

You will never ever hear europeans saying bizarre things like "billionaires should pay lower tax rates because they create jobs", it would be considered a joke there. And the word "socialist" is not considered an insult.

Going to europe means accepting a completely different way of life.

Re:USA! Wait... Home of the...?

[FridayBob]

Yet, the more restrictive and draconian our policies become, the more that the EU seems to protecting these rights.

My commiserations. Being Dutch, I felt proud today, because of both of the Dutch Government rejecting ACTA and Neelie Kroes (who is also Dutch) standing up for Net Neutrality. But, I'm also an American, so I find it depressing when I read about how badly the Internet is being treated in the country of its birth. The only things to cheer about are when really bad laws manage to be defeated at the last moment. Still, having spent the first 13 years of my life there, part of me will always want to believe that America is the #1 defender of freedom and democracy in the world.

Intellectually, however, I know that isn't really true anymore and hasn't been for quite some time. More than ever before, America now resembles a plutocracy. Sure, all Americans are equal, but the ones with lots of money are definitely more equal than the rest. Of course, it's still a democracy, so statistically this isn't always reflected in the guy who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but just take a look at Congress: the majority of those folks are there because they agreed to primarily to look after the financial interests of the few (in which case everything else comes a distant second).

Therefore, it's not really a surprise to see the Internet being treated poorly in the good ol' U.S. of A. -- too many Corporations are just not happy with it. They would agree with the Chinese that it affords the common man too much freedom; during arguments, they've even mentioned the Great Firewall of China as an example of how large-scale Internet censorship can also be made to work in America. So, what can we do about it?

The only real solution that I can think of is to tackle the root the problem: to get money out of politics. Take a look at this book. That's one set of solutions; it may not be the best, but nothing less than real campaign finance reform is what Americans should aim for. If successful, I think we can expect American politicians to become rather different animals: ones that will actually be capable of rational thought, finding common ground with their opponents, compromising when necessary and otherwise just plain capable of making good decisions.

How is blocking websites not a NN issue?

[betterunixthanunix]

From TFA:

Third, consumers also need to know if they are getting Champagne or lesser sparkling wine. If it is not full Internet, it shouldnâ(TM)t be marketed as such; perhaps it shouldnâ(TM)t be marketed as âoeInternetâ at all, at least not without any upfront qualification. Regulators should have that kind of control over how ISPs market the service.

(Emphasis mine)

Sounds to me like no ISP in any country that orders a block on, say, TBP, should be able to market itself as providing Internet access under this proposal.

Re:How is blocking websites not a NN issue?

[houghi]

Perhaps he was talking about Champagne, which can only come from the Champagne region. Just like certain other products can only come from certain regions.

It is a bit like trademarks.

Re:How is blocking websites not a NN issue?

[Smauler]

This is false, wrong, bullshit, or whatever else you want to call it.

What the EU has banned is the labelling of the wine as wine if it is produced with grapes sourced outside the EU. Which I think is personally a bit stupid, but it's a different issue entirely. It's nothing to do with protecting the wine industries of mainland Europe, since the ruling applies to them too. English wine is still wine (well, as much as it ever was ;P).

Actually, I'm being a bit unfair with that last snarky comment - there are some great English whites and sparkling wines... never had a good English red yet, though.

On topic - I think this ruling will hopefully be a good thing for the consumer - currently, ISP's can decide how you use the internet with little or no regulation.

Re:How is blocking websites not a NN issue?

[rockout]

I dunno. After having consumed English "alcoholic beverage containing fermented juice", I wouldn't call it wine either.

Re:How is blocking websites not a NN issue?

[Teun]

You should stop reading the crappy UK tabloids.

What happened is you can no longer call "an alcoholic beverage containing fermented juice" wine unless it's made from 100% grapes.

Re:Nice to see someone taking obviously needed ste

[Qzukk]

Customers will complain their skype call or video is jittery. They don't care so much about background downloads.

But when their Vonage calls are always jittery while their Comcast/Xfinity calls work Just Fine, that's when things start to smell funny, with or without background downloads.