Principles aimed at preventing threats to Internet and network neutrality...

and information society services, it said Friday. Net neutrality concerns in France are more about practices that could develop than current malfunctions in the marketplace, but the consequences of those developments could be significant and require specific regulation, ARCEP said. It will start monitoring online companies’ practices to ensure they comply with the principles. The parliament wants to debate the issues with a view to possible legislation, it said. ARCEP recommended that ISPs offer end-users the possibility of sending and receiving content of their choice; using the services and applications they want; connecting to the material and programs they want; and that they provide sufficient and transparent quality of service. For Internet access, the general rule should be no discrimination among content, services, applications or terminals, ARCEP said. Any traffic management undertaken to ensure access must be relevant, proportional, efficient and non-discriminatory, it said. Managed services are permissible in order to encourage innovation, but they may not unduly degrade the quality of Internet access, it said. Access providers must be open with end-users about any service restrictions, ARCEP said. They can’t use the term “unlimited” for offerings, including limitations on “reasonable usage,” that may result in temporary cut-offs, additional charges or excessive lowering of quality of service. ISPs and consumer groups have until the first part of 2011 to agree on what kind of information users should be given about limitations and traffic management, or ARCEP will do it for them. Access and information society services providers must identify and describe the different traffic management practices, including reasonable usage limitations associated with “unlimited” offers, by early 2011. ARCEP will define the principal parameters of Internet access quality of service. Companies which provide access to end-users and information society services must respond fairly and without discrimination to every reasonable interconnection request in order to make content, applications and services available to all users, it said. The effective exercise of users’ right to choose between services, applications and content means information society services providers can’t discriminate between different access providers and must be objective and open about how they select or classify different content tiers, particularly in the case of search engines. The next revision of the EU radio and telecommunications terminal equipment directive should be updated to ensure neutrality of computer terminals, ARCEP said. Separately Friday, Public Knowledge in the U.S. said the extension of line-sharing requirements to broadband operators and a more active regulatory culture have encouraged more competition in Europe than in America, but some level of prior regulation of retail ISPs is still necessary. In comments to the European Commission, Public Knowledge said broadband access providers should be governed by the same general principles of universal access as publicly available telephone services, with other obligations taking effect only where broadband undertakings hold significant market power. The group proposed several regulatory principles and urged the EC to watch out for “red flags” such as when an ISP appears to benefit more from having too little bandwidth and rationing access to it, or when it has other financial or political interests that would benefit from a more controlled or censored Internet. The EC should adopt a net neutrality framework, Public Knowledge said.