
Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe - jrepin
https://juliareda.eu/2016/08/victory-for-net-neutrality/
======
soci
As always, devil is in the details.

If you look at the fine print in the published "Guidelines for implementing
Net Neutratily" [1] linked in the article you will see that there are 3
exceptions to the rule (a,b,c). Being "c" the one that should fear us most:

EXCEPTIONS

    
    
      a) "comply with Union legislative acts (...)

-> meaning that a court order can change Net Neutrality, hmmm ok.
    
    
      b) preserve the integrity and security of the network, of services provided via that network, and of the terminal equipment of end-users;

-> meaning that in order to guarantee the security of the network Net Neutrality may be avoided. I'm so-so on this one.
    
    
      c) prevent impending network congestion and mitigate the effects of exceptional or temporary network congestion, provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally.

-> Meaning that ISPs can throttle specific categories of traffic at their own will.

This last one ruins the whole law. And this is not what me as European wanted.
ISPs won :(

[1]
[http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/...](http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/download/0/6160-berec-
guidelines-on-the-implementation-b_0.pdf)

[EDIT] typos

~~~
reitanqild
IMO, IANAL

> -> meaning that a court order can change Net Neutrality, hmmm ok.

It would be weird for a court to order anyone to break net neutrality.

> -> meaning that in order to guarantee the security of the network Net
> Neutrality may be avoided. I'm so-so on this one.

The intention here seems to be to allow (D)DOS attack mitigation etc.

> -> Meaning that ISPs can throttle specific categories of traffic at their
> own will.

Note that the law is very clear that this only is allowed "provided that
equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally."

~~~
soci
> Note that the law is very clear that this only is allowed "provided that
> equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally."

They can, for instance, slow down P2P traffic. What do you think about that?

~~~
WilliamDhalgren
comcast could in the US, and won in court. Despite US regulation being seen as
quite robust.

By this text, they'd need to show it was an exceptional and temporary
necessity to deal with congestion.

~~~
rhino369
If you are talking about the case from 5ish years ago, that was because the
court struck down the entire basis for net neutrality. The net neutrality
rules themselves didn't allow for blocking p2p.

~~~
WilliamDhalgren
yeah, that's the case. Could you clarify? I'm just seeing old articles
claiming the last court verdict on the matter was that the FCC overstepped its
authority in that particular case? Did some case or law change this? But yeah,
hard to see how discriminating a particular protocol w/o cause could be
network neutral.

~~~
rhino369
Sure. There was a new FCC ruling that based it's decision on a much more
legally sound law.

The FCC is allowed to regulate telecommunication services strictly. Right now
it takes a sort of a hands off approach, but they have broad authority to make
rules. Before 2015, the FCC considered ISPs to be "information services"
instead of "telecommunication services." So the first time the FCC proposed
net neutrality rules, it tried to apply them under the "information services"
framework.

The Court in 2010 (I think) found that the FCC didn't have the power to
regulate "information services" so harshly. So the court canceled their net
neutrality rules.

So last year the FCC reclassified ISPs as telecommunication services. Since
they are allowed to harshly regulate those services, it's considered very
likely to upheld by the court this time.

The only chance it gets struck down is if the court thinks the FCC was clearly
wrong about ISPs being a telecommunication service. But the law is pretty
clear that are. But I think some ISPs are still fighting it.

------
tajen
Next fight : That ISPs advertise the minimum guaranteed bandwidth and are
banned from advertising the maximum theoretical number.

Then only we could measure that they do offer the same bandwidth with Netflix
and Vimeo as they advertise. Net neutrality at its best.

Edit: Of course the number will be very low because they have to (God forbid!)
provision their network to serve this bandwidth to all customers during peak
hours. But what we're looking for is not a huge number - we're looking for a
number that allows meaningful comparison with competitors.

~~~
heinrichhartman
That's not likely going to happen nore is it a sensible thing to ask for.

As an ISP how would you _guarantee_ the bandwidth for each endpoint? You would
have to provision for the maximal capacity all over your network. Given that
most people only utilize their channel 1% of the time, this is a huge waste!

What's sensible to ask ISPs to do is: (a) Communicate historically experienced
bandwith at each region (b) Provided certified, standartized measurement
facilities (software / hardware?!) that can be used to monitor of the link
utilization/saturation levels. (d) Refund policy, when agreed service level
targets (as measured in b) were not hit. (This should be legally mandated)

~~~
Swizec
> As an ISP how would you _guarantee_ the bandwidth for each endpoint?

When I still lived in Slovenia, I had 20/20 FTTH. Fiber went directly into a
router in my bedroom. My bandwidth was _always_ exactly 20/20\. No matter
what.

Now I have Comcast. Speedtest says I get 80/6\. On Friday and Saturday
evenings Netflix and Facebook and many other things often experience issues.
Now I can't _confirm_ any of this. If you run speedtest, it's fine. If you
ping something, there's no packet loss. But it just doesn't _feel_ very fast
and reliable under normal use.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
> My bandwidth was always exactly 20/20\. No matter what.

This can't possibly be true. The ISP providing the service can only guarantee
a particular speed to the boarder of their network.

Once you connect to a service not hosted by your ISP they can't guarantee
anything.

~~~
Swizec
Sure, they can't guarantee speed with a particular service, but they _can_
guarantee width and reliability of my pipe. Believe me, back then I was
downloading so much crap that my internet was stuffed full at all times. I'd
notice any dip in service.

And when I was on ADSL, I did notice those dips. A lot of them. With FTTH,
they went away.

------
smb06
Facebook tried to introduce "Free Basics" in Angola after its failed attempts
at doing so in India. Good to see similar efforts being made in Angola to
educate about Net Neutrality as well. Maybe they can use some takeaway from
the above ruling.

Source: [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/wikipedia-zero-facebook-
fre...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/wikipedia-zero-facebook-free-basics-
angola-pirates-zero-rating)

------
kleiba
_" It has to be noted with regret that it was not our digital Commissioner
Günther Oettinger who listened to the people and defended an internet not
biased towards big corporate interests [...]"_

That would hardly have been expected: in the first six months of being a
Commissioner, Oettinger met with _two_ NGO representatives but with _44_
corporate lobbyists [1].

[1] [http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/guenther-
oettinger...](http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/guenther-oettinger-
und-lobbyismus-eu-kommissar-trifft-selten-ngos-a-1040147.html)

------
headmelted
It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it
that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue.

And this is why Brexit is so heart-breaking. I'm surrounded by people in my
personal life who think it's a fantastic idea, but they're not the most...
informed? Likewise for local politicians.

(Side note to my rant: I have this theory that the rise of the iPhone, and the
fact that it is such a big part of people's lives now, has fooled regular
folks into believing that they're experts on technology. I have no more than
anecdotal evidence for this).

I strongly suspect that local legislators will see no conflict whatsoever with
scrapping these laws when the exit finally comes, and it saddens me that I'm
surrounded by a lot of people that will be cheering when it happens.

This is from a real conversation I had this week:

"What it boils down to is do you want to have us control our own laws and
decisions and borders, or have to take orders from some bureaucrat in Brussels
that doesn't understand us?"

Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand
what they're doing.

~~~
markonthewall
Those are candy-bars to make you happy, just like the EHRC is keeping the
leftists in line while we slowly shift toward an ordoliberal paradigm at the
european level. For countries like France, Italy and even Germany, that means
social regression and harmonisation by the bottom.

>Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand
what they're doing.

Yay structural unemployment in the eurozone! The folks at the commission and
at the ECB sure know as hell what they are doing since the EU is a sui generis
structure and the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment absolutely
_did not_ hurt western economies and destroyed the industrial tissue of those
countries. I am being sarcastic.

Now, without any offense, you sound like someone who has red a wikipedia page
about the European Union and who nows consider everyone having dissenting
opinion to be a stinky redneck who does not deserve a voice.

Maybe that's not what you wanted to convey, in that case I apologise, but to
be honest, at this point, I have met so many pseudo-smartass people who think
they understand everything that I have very little hope you don't fall into
that category of people. Thinking technocracy will magically solves all your
problems is lazy, at best.

~~~
whybroke
Intriguing but 3 questions:

How could shifting more towards Ordoliberalism (=government regulation to
maximize competition plus a social safety net) be a bad thing? Quality of life
is rather high in Germany after all.

Is there in fact evidence that unemployment is intentionally maintained in
order to suppress inflation?

Even if your assertions are true, how would Brexit address any of these things
and generally how would a balkanized Europe be more prosperous let alone more
globally competitive than a unified Europe?

~~~
hueving
Unification is counter-productive if you think that the goals of the group are
bad.

~~~
whybroke
Which goals would those be? An efficient tariff free zone? A larger area for
individual opportunity? A reasonable social safety net? Greater power on the
global stage? Protection for human rights?

Or is the objection merely to some wholly imaginary threat to the purity of
the anglo-saxon race and culture and an unthinking and instantaneous embracing
of anything nationalist and right leaning?

~~~
objectivistbrit
"Or is the objection merely to some wholly imaginary threat to the purity of
the anglo-saxon race and culture and an unthinking and instantaneous embracing
of anything nationalist and right leaning?"

Yes. Yes it is. Everyone who disagrees with you is emotionally driven and
intellectually dishonest.

The goal we object to was the attempt to build a giant country. The EEC should
have stuck with the tariff free zone and free movement (of workers, not all
citizens, as it was originally). Instead they grew into a 28-nation wannabe
superpower with a currency, flag, central bank, law-making powers, etc. Now
Juncker is pushing for an EU army. The whole project has departed from reality
and is going to collapse in a few decades, sadly taking down the free trade
zone with it.

~~~
whybroke
> The goal we object to was the attempt to build a giant country.

Why?

Honestly, how would that be bad? After all the UK consists of Wales, England,
Scotland and N. Ireland. People of the past opposed that unity so much they
were willing to die to try to prevent it yet on the whole that unity has been
undeniably positive.

For the EU for example, how could having an single foreign policy be a bad
idea in any way? How does having an EU flag do any harm what so ever? I'd
claim that point in particular shows the issue very much is emotionally
driven.

And what will make it fall apart except people voting to leave it on grounds
as trivial as having a flag?

Likewise such an extreme step as dismantling the entire EU project rather than
just fixing the monetary problem can't really be justified rationally and
looks pretty overwhelmingly like emotionally driven nationalism.

~~~
hueving
>single foreign policy be a bad idea in any way?

Because you might disagree with it? How can you be so narrow-minded to not
even fathom people having different fundamental beliefs? Why don't Israel and
Palestine just merge into one country called Unicornia? Why don't all people
just separate religious beliefs from government, or conversely, why don't we
all just switch to the correct(tm) religion?

One country may not want to support terrorists while another wants to support
them because they are 'freedom fighters', how do you propose they operate
under the same foreign policy?

~~~
whybroke
Do you agree with every foreign policy decision your current country makes?
Are there really allot EU member states that support terrorist? Is the UK - EU
divide really as violent as the Israel Palestine divide?

I was hoping there was some coherent argument in favor of Brexit that I had
not heard and that maronthewall might be hinting at. Clearly I was in error in
that hope.

And as objectivistbrit so defensively denied: '...emotionally driven and
intellectually dishonest...' is shown very clearly again to be very much at
the core of the Brexit movement

------
nothis
Disappointingly little concrete information of what's in now, anyone knows how
to read these things and skimmed the original text? I heard that EU "net
neutrality" is disappointlngly vague. I see providers offering free data for
things like Spotify, which, in my understanding, is exactly what net
neutrality should prevent.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "I see providers offering free data for things like Spotify"

Any source for this? I've only ever seen providers offer free Spotify
membership, not free data.

Edit: Thanks for the responses. I had no idea this was happening.

~~~
swinglock
Swedens I believe largest operators 3 and Telia has unlimited or a large
amount of data that doesn't count towards the usual data limits when using
specially selected services such as Spotify and Facebook.

~~~
K0nserv
Telia also attached a condition that you had to promise to be nice on the
internet and not practice "näthat"(net hate). Not joking either, they were
then very unresponsive to criticism and questioning of their stance on net
neutrality.

------
vegabook
Bravo EU! Sure I see that there are plenty of commented caveats, but coming
within 24 hours of a 14 billion dollar retroactive tax bill for one of the
world's most opportunistic tax dodgers, I cannot help but have good faith
towards this announcement. Here is the only bloc, globally, that actually
seems to care about individuals versus corporations, with unequivocal and
demonstrated evidence of said motivations. I've been fed a diet of "useless,
corrupt, 'Brussels' bureaucrats" ever since I moved to Britain (which, as an
aside, today disgracefully tried to woo AAPL with the anti-tax red carpet).
But all I actually see, is a bunch of people, bureaucrats perhaps, but who are
_trying to look out for me_ . Today I say, Hurrah EU! Thank you Julia Reda.

------
thr0waway1239
I once heard an interview with the Economist digital editor Tom Standage where
he claims (at 5:45 into the interview) that net neutrality is the wrong thing
to focus on, and the important thing is just making sure there is more
competition between the telcos. Can someone more familiar with this issue tell
me if this argument is correct?

[https://www.podcat.com/podcasts/i63zqo-untether-tv-mobile-
st...](https://www.podcat.com/podcasts/i63zqo-untether-tv-mobile-strategy-and-
tactics-audio-pervasive-computing-internet-of-things/episodes/2j53su-why-the-
economist-launched-their-daily-smartphone-app-espresso-with-digital-editor-
tom-standage)

~~~
kartan
The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her
internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the
implications of their decision. If the services is cheap enough and has the
thing that they usually use then they are done. Competition can easy bring
cheaper services but hardly can bring improving in long term needs.

That's why we have laws that forbid companies to pollute the environment,
restrict child labor and the like. Consumers will choose the short term
benefits for themselves over the long term benefits for the society.

~~~
jomamaxx
"The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her
internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the
implications of their decision."

I think you're missing the implication of the point.

If there is 'a lot of competition' \- it makes cartel-like or colluding
behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-
neutrality.

Customers don't have to be aware of it.

And it's a reasonable argument: ensuring healthy and fair competition is
almost always better than legislative controls, usually because regulations
are often poorly conceived and effectuated, or at least, the market changes
rapidly and the regulations fail to adapt.

I think that a reasonable net-neutrality law should probably be made both in
Europe and in the US, that said, I'm weary of it being too onerous.

My position is also pragmatic: 'more competition' is unlikely in an industry
with such massive barriers to entry etc..

~~~
the_other
> If there is 'a lot of competition' \- it makes cartel-like or colluding
> behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-
> neutrality.

Can you explain this further? I struggle to see how you get from "a lot of
competition" to "de-facto net neutrality", and how that would continue
indefinitely.

It seems to me that we had de-facto net neutrality from the outset but that
over time, as the industry matured, the large players started to talk about
colluding. It has taken pro-neutrality lobbying and legislation to maintain
neutrality in what was previously a free market.

~~~
jomamaxx
Because it would be very difficult for carriers to co-opt entities like
Netflix into nonstandard schemes if there were a lot of competition.

You hinted at it in your comment: "the large players started to talk about
colluding"

Only a when there are a 'small number of large players' is this kind of
collusion possible.

When there is a lot of competition, the entire layer of the value chain
becomes weaker.

It's a problem because they control a scarce resource: the airwaves, and also
a kind of scarce resource: access rights for fibre etc..

~~~
the_other
In my (limited) understanding of economics, all industries coalesce from
numerous small players into a small number of big players.

------
jkingsbery
I don't understand how it's "progress" to move decisions from a small number
of bureaucracies to a single, less accountable bureaucracy.

~~~
hx87
It's "progress" when the larger bureaucracy is harder to regulatorily capture,
if only because in larger jurisdictions there are more competitors.

~~~
smsm42
> larger bureaucracy is harder to regulatorily capture

The example of US federal government does not exactly support this point.

~~~
hx87
It does when you compare it to state and municipal governments.

~~~
smsm42
I don't see any indication federal government is more resistant to regulatory
capture than state government. It may be more expensive, but the numbers are
still don't even breach 1% of potential profits, and capturing one federal
regulator is much better and easier than capturing fifty+ state ones or ten
thousand local ones...

------
gourou
These were the guidelines from November 2015

[http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX...](http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32015R2120&from=en)

~~~
happy_tentacles
The two arguments presented - to keep a legal path for a higher priority
routing - during late 2015 Trilogue Negotiations that framed the directive the
way it is:

Driverless cars Medical applications (remote operations rooms were mentioned)

You have to give to telecoms - they built the infrastructure and are desperate
to design some services that could become additional source of revenues. For
now, it seems, the door is shut - maybe with the new automation coming they
could dig it up - akin to "you don't want your house to send fire warning to
city grid too slow, do you?".

------
secfirstmd
Irish phone companies are also doing the same:

Meteor [http://www.killbiller.com/blog/2016/6/16/free-facebook-
insta...](http://www.killbiller.com/blog/2016/6/16/free-facebook-instagram-
and-twitter-data-from-meteor-mobile)

Eir: [https://www.siliconrepublic.com/life/eir-meteor-mobile-
socia...](https://www.siliconrepublic.com/life/eir-meteor-mobile-social-
unlimited-twitter-facebook-instagram)

------
vikascoder
How about Clothing neutrality? :)

------
IMRelentless1
Any thoughts on Obama handing over the DNS directory to the UN?

------
daveloyall
For your convenience, here's just the text "in the boxes" (the Recitals), from
[http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/...](http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/download/0/6160-berec-
guidelines-on-the-implementation-b_0.pdf)

These are the first 9, the other 10 are here:
[https://gist.github.com/daveloyall/a1112bb70412d77bebc809090...](https://gist.github.com/daveloyall/a1112bb70412d77bebc8090906769498)

Recital 1 =========

This Regulation aims to establish common rules to safeguard equal and non-
discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of internet access
services and related end-users’ rights. It aims to protect end-users and
simultaneously to guarantee the continued functioning of the internet
ecosystem as an engine of innovation.

Recital 2 =========

The measures provided for in this Regulation respect the principle of
technological neutrality, that is to say they neither impose nor discriminate
in favour of the use of a particular type of technology.

Recital 3 =========

The internet has developed over the past decades as an open platform for
innovation with low access barriers for end-users, providers of content,
applications and services and providers of internet access services. The
existing regulatory framework aims to promote the ability of end-users to
access and distribute information or run applications and services of their
choice. However, a significant number of end-users are affected by traffic
management practices which block or slow down specific applications or
services. Those tendencies require common rules at the Union level to ensure
the openness of the internet and to avoid fragmentation of the internal market
resulting from measures adopted by individual Member States.

Recital 4 =========

An internet access service provides access to the internet, and in principle
to all the end-points thereof, irrespective of the network technology and
terminal equipment used by end-users. However, for reasons outside the control
of providers of internet access services, certain end points of the internet
may not always be accessible. Therefore, such providers should be deemed to
have complied with their obligations related to the provision of an internet
access service within the meaning of this Regulation when that service
provides connectivity to virtually all end points of the internet. Providers
of internet access services should therefore not restrict connectivity to any
accessible end-points of the internet.

Recital 5 =========

When accessing the internet, end-users should be free to choose between
various types of terminal equipment as defined in Commission Directive
2008/63/EC (1). Providers of internet access services should not impose
restrictions on the use of terminal equipment connecting to the network in
addition to those imposed by manufacturers or distributors of terminal
equipment in accordance with Union law.

Recital 6 =========

End-users should have the right to access and distribute information and
content, and to use and provide applications and services without
discrimination, via their internet access service. The exercise of this right
should be without prejudice to Union law, or national law that complies with
Union law, regarding the lawfulness of content, applications or services. This
Regulation does not seek to regulate the lawfulness of the content,
applications or services, nor does it seek to regulate the procedures,
requirements and safeguards related thereto. Those matters therefore remain
subject to Union law, or national law that complies with Union law.

Recital 7 =========

In order to exercise their rights to access and distribute information and
content and to use and provide applications and services of their choice, end-
users should be free to agree with providers of internet access services on
tariffs for specific data volumes and speeds of the internet access service.
Such agreements, as well as any commercial practices of providers of internet
access services, should not limit the exercise of those rights and thus
circumvent provisions of this Regulation safeguarding open internet access.
National regulatory and other competent authorities should be empowered to
intervene against agreements or commercial practices which, by reason of their
scale, lead to situations where end-users’ choice is materially reduced in
practice. To this end, the assessment of agreements and commercial practices
should, inter alia, take into account the respective market positions of those
providers of internet access services, and of the providers of content,
applications and services, that are involved. National regulatory and other
competent authorities should be required, as part of their monitoring and
enforcement function, to intervene when agreements or commercial practices
would result in the undermining of the essence of the end-users’ rights.

Recital 8 =========

When providing internet access services, providers of those services should
treat all traffic equally, without discrimination, restriction or
interference, independently of its sender or receiver, content, application or
service, or terminal equipment. According to general principles of Union law
and settled case-law, comparable situations should not be treated differently
and different situations should not be treated in the same way unless such
treatment is objectively justified.

Recital 9 =========

The objective of reasonable traffic management is to contribute to an
efficient use of network resources and to an optimisation of overall
transmission quality responding to the objectively different technical quality
of service requirements of specific categories of traffic, and thus of the
content, applications and services transmitted. Reasonable traffic management
measures applied by providers of internet access services should be
transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and should not be based on
commercial considerations. The requirement for traffic management measures to
be non-discriminatory does not preclude providers of internet access services
from implementing, in order to optimise the overall transmission quality,
traffic management measures which differentiate between objectively different
categories of traffic. Any such differentiation should, in order to optimise
overall quality and user experience, be permitted only on the basis of
objectively different technical quality of service requirements (for example,
in terms of latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth) of the specific
categories of traffic, and not on the basis of commercial considerations. Such
differentiating measures should be proportionate in relation to the purpose of
overall quality optimisation and should treat equivalent traffic equally. Such
measures should not be maintained for longer than necessary.

------
IMRelentless1
any thoughts on Obama handing over the DNS directory to the UN?

