Expect a Fight Over Net Neutrality, Mobile Roaming, EU Lawmakers Tell Governments
European Parliament efforts to toughen net neutrality rules could be overshadowed by a fight with governments over mobile roaming, one legislator said Thursday. As the Council of Ministers and Parliament prepare to negotiate the "connected continent" telecom overhaul package's provisions on net neutrality and roaming, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Marietje Schaake, of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and the Netherlands, said she thinks lawmakers will "challenge/fight" the Council's weaker proposals on both topics. The Council proposals, if adopted, could lead to guidelines for national regulators to follow in assessing if net neutrality is breached, the head of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) told us. Meanwhile, the U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom) announced a sweeping review of digital communications markets that isn't expected to, but could, raise some net neutrality issues.
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EU governments want to cap mobile roaming fees for the time being and consider their abolition in 2018, Schaake said in a March 4 blog. She and 128 other MEPs pressed Council members in a March 4 letter to "adopt proposals that put an end to roaming charges as soon as possible, and to have clearly defined net neutrality rules for Europe." The Council position on net neutrality includes a bar against blocking, throttling or discriminatory behavior except in justified and defined exceptions (see 1503040011). It doesn't prohibit specialized services. EU lawmakers in April approved a more net neutrality-friendly text that more strictly limited exceptions. Schaake panned the "weakened proposals" on roaming and net neutrality, writing: "As it looks now, this will be a hard confrontation" between the Council and Parliament.
The Council "has broken election promises" on both issues, Schaake emailed us. "We stand with European citizens that want a lower phone bill and that believe net neutrality is essential to preserve the open internet." The fight now will likely be over when to end roaming charges, as well as over net neutrality, she said. "I actually fear that the roaming will be the most popular and the risk is net neutrality can be overshadowed."
BEREC has collaborated with the EU institutions on net neutrality and followed the debate closely, Chairwoman Fatima Barros told us. The advisory body recommends that the quality of Internet access services be monitored over time to detect any potential degradations, she said. BEREC has identified two main categories of such degradations: (1) where Internet access service as a whole is affected by specialized services being provided at the expense of access; (2) where individual applications using access services are harmed by blocking, throttling or other such activities. The Council proposal "follows this general principle and in whole is pretty much in line with BEREC's approach" to net neutrality, "even if some technical details could be improved," Barros said.
National regulators already are required to monitor potential service degradations under the EU universal service directive, Barros said. If the connected continent measure includes new regulations, "this may become more formalized," and BEREC also may have to set guidelines for assessing compliance with a new net neutrality regulation, she said. For Internet companies doing business in Europe, net neutrality will "lead to more innovation at the application layer," Barros said. Then the number of available applications will drive demand for access capacity at the network layer, leading to investments in high-speed broadband networks to accommodate the increased traffic, she added.
Net neutrality may or may not enter into the strategic review of digital communications, Ofcom announced Thursday. The review will look at competition, investment, innovation and availability of products in the broadband, mobile and landline markets, it said. It will focus on three aspects: (1) ensuring the right incentive for private-sector investment; (2) maintaining strong competition and tackling obstacles or bottlenecks that might be holding the sector back; (3) identifying any need for deregulation.
"Our intention is that Ofcom's net neutrality position will not be in the scope of the review," a spokesman said Thursday. Ofcom's current position on net neutrality is that some kinds of traffic management may be appropriate to improve the consumer experience, "so long as they do not extend to anti-competitive practices, such as blocking and throttling," he said. The regulator is interested in the broad views of stakeholders on competition issues relating to communications services, he said.
The review shows that Ofcom "has clear concerns over the state of competition and which model is the best going forward with the current batch of quad play consolidation going on," said Tom Kiedrowski, founder of The Cedar Tree Advisory Service, which advises on economic, regulatory and competition policy. Net neutrality could surface during the process, but Ofcom is likely to focus on changes in the overall communications market caused by mobile technologies; the need for ultrafast as opposed to superfast broadband; and the structural separation of BT, he said.