European Government Agrees On Net Neutrality Rules, With Exemptions

An anonymous reader writes: The European Union's three main legislative bodies, the European Council, the European Parliment, and the European Commision, have reached an agreement on "Open Internet" rules that establish principles similar to Net Neutrality in the EU. The rules require that all internet traffic and users be treated equally, forbidding paid-for prioritisation of traffic. However, exemptions are permitted for particular "specialised services" where the service is not possible under the open network's normal conditions, provided that the customer using the service pays for the privilege. (The examples given are IPTV, teleconferencing, and telepresence surgery.) Zero-rating — exempting particular data from traffic caps — is also permitted, but will be subject to oversight. Notably, this means (if all goes as promised) the elimination of cellphone roaming fees within the EU; however, that's been promised and delayed before.

Comments

Re:That will end well

[One With Whisp]

The network's normal conditions are insufficient for specialized services such as video streaming, online video games, voice calls, and other such fringe usages of the internet. Therefore, we can apply special rules to those usages, and then throttle everything else down to nothing.

Now that's what I call neutral.