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EU Wants To Enshrine Network Neutrality In Law
Bismillah writes "Following the example of the Dutch, who enacted laws supporting network neutrality, the European Union is now looking at doing the same. They are pushing for an end to the throttling and blocking of services such as Skype and Whatsapp by providers hoping to drive users to their own competing services. The EU also wants a service transparency requirement for ISPs, so people know what they're buying — like minimum speed. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out."
Looks like Europeans are caring more about their freedoms than Americans.
This is coming from the same politicians who claim that directing traffic from someone in Zimbabwe to a server in Zimbabwe is discrimination. European Union politicians simply cannot be trusted as none have been elected by the people, so one can only wonder whose interests they serve.
There is Kroes and a number of others who want to keep the internet free, so it can defend democratic values and such.
And then there are those who are bought by lobbyists, and who support the ISPs as well as the music/movie industry and wish to tie it down and control it, in the name of The Economy and Profit.
It's a good thing that Neelie Kroes is quite a big shot in the EU government (the "European Commission digital agenda vice-president" is important in this matter)...
Let them first stop censoring the internet.
Before you start accusing the Netherlands or the EU over being overzealus about this, consider that these laws were a response to the biggest mobile internet provider in the Netherlands announcing plans to block WhatsApp access, and only allow access to it to those who payed up, after people stopped text-messaging in droves in favor of WhatsApp. This didn't come out of the blue, and I personally feel stopping this sort of thing is a good(tm) thing.
Just finished reading Neelie Kroes' speech an I really like it. Good to see that an influential politician has a long-term vision of how the internet has evolved and into which direction it should go.
You can read the speech here and also leave your comments on specific sections: http://commentneelie.eu/speech.php?sp=SPEECH/13/498
Now I wonder how this will play with website blocking in the UK, Italy, Denmark, ...
Is this the sort of network neutrality we the users want and expect?
Or is this the buzzword sort of "network neutrality" that the companys want where it pretty much means the opposite of what common sense and logic say and the users want....?
I can't tell which version they are actually talking about... Especially comming from the EU who has gone all censor happy lately... Kind of the exact thing this is supposed to prevent...
Sounds like a bullshit snowjob to me...
Europe, like any other region of this world, is dependent on its member states' economies being successful in maximizing their profits. That, and the fact that the EU in its heart is an economic union, not a civil rights institution, is the reason why there are, by conservative estimation, 15,000 lobbyists working in brussels, making 20 per member of the European Parliament, 550 per member of the European Commission. Which is why the EU, just as any other governmentorial institution in this world, usually creates laws and decisions in favor of the big money, not the people. And which is why a decision in favour of network neutrality, which would interfere with the profit maximization of the biggest European telcos, is improbable even if suggested by a top-rank commissioner. And if it really should become reality, it will be one of the rare exceptions to the rule.
The level of democratic legitimization of the European Commission is, by the way, completely irrelevant in this context. In this so-called civilized world, the only puropose of elections is to hold up the illusion that people could influence politics, while politics will, as a matter of economic necessity, always be dictated by profits, no matter in which cases people are allowed to vote, or, for that matter, whom they do elect.
Remembering the times when Deutsche Telekom was still called "Deutsche Bundespost" and a state-owned monopoly, I can only say: NO WAY!!!
Why is it that so many people believe that a monopoly "works better" if it's state-owned instead of privately held? A private monopoly must at least make sure they are not being substituted away by some related technology (and therefore stay *somewhat* attractive), while *every single* government monopoly makes sure, using the law and force, that nobody competes with them, ever.
The best thing that ever happened to the German telecommunications market was to allow competitors in, and push Deutsche Telekom aside (still profitable, paying good dividends on their stock).
Deutsche Telekom is not a "monopoly". They still own the network, but are forced to rent "the last mile" to competitors at regulated prices. Their market share is not that high. Vodafone, O2, KabelDeutschland and others are only some of their competitors.
Back on topic: Deutsche Telekom also does IPTV, and they are being accused of violating network neutrality since they want to exempt it (and phone services) from their planned DSL caps (75GB @DSL, 200GB @VDSL 50MBit). Partly correct, but it's not "internet" because Telekom has built a parallel infrastructure for it (separate VLAN, separate distribution network). Partly, because at the same time they have a sh*tty backbone connection to, for example, YouTube and want to make separate agreements with them to a) "finance better connectivity" and b) have select services exempt from bandwidth caps.
No other provider does this. I went from Deutsche Telekom to O2, and suddenly Youtube in HD started working (it is really unuseable on DTAG's network). Also, if you use a VPN and then start Youtube, everything is fine - even if exactly the same backbone connection is used.
They should enforce truth in advertising: "Warning. We deliberately slow down Skype and YouTube to make their product seem worse compared to ours. Do you want to sign up with us?"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Cool! Hopefully this EU law cover Germany as well.
Here it's nearly impossible to watch YouTube(r) without constant hick-ups. Big part of the content is blocked, but that's not as annoying as having to waste 5 minutes on watching a 2 minute video.
Funnily enough this bandwidth-limiting/proxying doesn't apply to all services and pronz play smoothly in HD.
Germany tends to get discounts / exemptions on EU regulations though.
What if I'm a customer and I want streaming audio prioritized, for the obvious reason that it's better not to have it burp when some software updater checks for patches?
It would be hard enough for technical people to define "network neutrality", let alone government. Don't get me wrong. I like the concept of network neutrality. Violations are like obscenity though. "you know it when you see it".
I think the best thing the government can do is define "the spirit of the law" and then let judges decide in civil class action suits or something similar. Anything else risks throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
If this is a ruse to get me to vote "in" in a potential future "in/out" referundum on the UK's membership of the EU, it's working.