[connect-bof] BEREC - Network Neutrality

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-its-views-on-the-european-parliament-first-reading-legislative-resolution-on-the-european-commissions-proposal-for-a-connected-continent-regulation

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