Hello all, the ’90 telecoms liberalization was made with (flexible) directives, not (rigid) regulations. Also the european regulatory framework for electronic communications services consists of directives, not regulations (the only exception were ULL, for certain time, and then roaming). Berec is implicitly challenging the legal instrument chosen by Kroes for the Single Market, i.e. a regulation. In the past Berec made various analysis about net neutrality infringements throughout Europe, and the result showed quite a diversified situation being caused by absence of rules rather then by the existence of different national legislations. This is the reason why Berec would consider adequate to regulate this matter via a directive rather than a regulation.* However, the original sin (i.e. Kroes’s regulation covering a plurality of different areas) is there and there is no room to change it, in my opinion. However, it could be possible that the Council cut out the entire NN reform and decides that it will be part of the program of the next Commissions. The latter option has been already proposed for other areas of the Single Market proposal. I am following the working groups of the Council in the matter of the Single Market and I see that many member States are reiterating their objections against both the proposal of the Commission and the amendments of the Parliament. Thus, the situation is not very promising for the proposal, which will be radically reduced. Inno * The use of a regulation is quite intrusive and it has been challenged frequently by national authorities: for example, a proposed regulation for the roll-out and reduction of costs for high-speed networks was converted into directive by the Council and the Parliament. The same challenge was made against the new privacy regulation of Commissioner Reding. In the latter case, however, reding was able to resist because an harmonized directive already existed (95/46/EC), therefore the escalation into a regulation could be justified. Il giorno 20/mag/2014, alle ore 14:36, Wout de Natris <denatrisconsult@hotmail.nl> ha scritto:
Gordon,
Weren't regulators in telecoms in the late 90s meant to go in straight through the front door and break open the market? (Where necessary.) Make interconnection and special access possible by forcing access and setting prices, etc.? In those days I was not under the impression to be working on "the edges".
What I get from your analyses, the main point BEREC's stating, is not so far beside what happened in the late 90s, at least in NL. New developments should be supported, but not through harming other/traditional services. And isn't that what the concern is about?
Wout
From: cooperation-wg-request@ripe.net Subject: cooperation-wg Digest, Vol 29, Issue 6 To: cooperation-wg@ripe.net Date: Tue, 20 May 2014 12:00:05 +0200
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Today's Topics:
1. BEREC - Network Neutrality (Gordon Lennox)
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Message: 1 Date: Tue, 20 May 2014 10:32:45 +0200 From: Gordon Lennox <gordon.lennox.13@gmail.com> Subject: [cooperation-wg] BEREC - Network Neutrality To: Cooperation WG <cooperation-wg@ripe.net> Message-ID: <1895B0B2-692B-49D0-A29C-FAC5A053528D@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
BEREC have just issued a press release commenting on the Parliament's modified proposal and recalling some of their concerns with the Commission's initial proposal. About network neutrality they write:
<<BEREC supports the promotion of and the clear commitment of the European Parliament to the principle of net neutrality. This is in line with BEREC?s public position, and indeed BEREC has been deeply involved with the subject since 2010, since when it has developed a set of principles and guidelines that can be implemented and adapted by national regulatory authorities, under the existing framework. The internet has proven to be highly innovative, thanks to certain fundamental principles such as the separation of network and application layer, the best effort principle and universal connectivity. This innovation should be safeguarded, both on the edges and within the network.
BEREC recognizes that guaranteeing an open internet is a challenging objective, not least given its complex and dynamic ecosystem. Yet, the Commission?s original proposal would turn a flexible and progressive regulatory regime (under the 2009 Framework) into a rigid regulatory system and the European Parliament has generally retained this approach.
BEREC would instead prefer an approach based on principles rather than detailed rules and which provides NRAs with the necessary powers to ensure that those principles (such as the ones developed by BEREC on what constitutes reasonable traffic management and on the relationship between specialized services and internet access services) are respected. Under such an approach, national regulators would be pursuing the same objective and enforcing the same principles, but the specific triggers and thresholds for regulatory intervention in a given market could be adapted to address national circumstances.
If a rules-based approach is nonetheless to be pursued, then further work would be required to ensure that the definitions and rules were legally precise, future-proof and enforceable in practice. While some of the language in the text adopted by European Parliament draws upon BEREC previous publications on the subject, improving the original Commission?s proposals, it does not yet meet these standards. A balanced approach to promoting net neutrality on the Internet in parallel to the provision of specialised services is a difficult challenge. BEREC considers that specialised services should be clearly separated (physically or virtually) from internet access services at the network layer, to ensure that sufficient safeguards prevent degradation of the internet access services. Therefore BEREC welcomes the European Parliament?s acknowledgement of this principle. However, some inconsistencies in the proposed rules and definitions still raise legal and policy concerns.>>
http://berec.europa.eu/eng/news_consultations/whats_new/2203-berec-publishes...
So if you want network neutrality then you need regulation? The only question left is what kind. One indication of where they see the limits can perhaps be found in the sentence "This innovation should be safeguarded, both on the edges and within the network."
I feel this is a significant shift. I cannot remember regulators looking in detail at what happens within traditional networks. They limited themselves to the "edges".
Gordon
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