Debate over Traffic Prioritization, Neutrality Continues at London Forum
LONDON -- Net neutrality can be considered a “First Amendment of the Internet,” on which limitations of free expression should be allowed only under very restricted circumstances, media and communications Professor Bart Cammaerts of the London School of Economics Media & Communications said Wednesday at the IIR Telecoms Regulation Forum. Operators shouldn’t be allowed to favor some kinds of content over others for commercial reasons, he said. Speakers generally supported allowing some traffic prioritization, but charging for it remains controversial.
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There’s no clear-cut definition of net neutrality, said Thomas Grob, Deutsche Telekom (DT) senior expert for regulatory strategy. Europe’s situation is very different from that in the U.S., where there’s no preemptive regulation to enforce nondiscrimination at the network access level, he said. Europeans have many options to avoid providers that charge extra for Internet access, whereas Americans often face duopolies, he said.
DT isn’t interested in influencing customers’ choice of content but is concerned about delivering the quality expected and paid for, said Grob. The telco is happy that Europe’s net neutrality discussion has moved away from the issue of rights restriction to a technical and economic debate about what traffic management is reasonable, he said. Companies have much to gain from intelligent networks and differentiated offers, but prices can’t be unfair in Europe’s competitive market, Grob said. He urged regulators to be cautious about intervening on net neutrality when there hasn’t been a market failure.
The goal is to keep the Internet open, which for users means access, choice and transparency including concerning bandwidth and network management policies, said Frederic Donck, director of the Internet Society’s European Regional Bureau. The Society recognizes a clear role for network management in keeping services running smoothly, but it must be traffic-neutral, not a tool for discriminatory behavior, he said. With bandwidth demand increasing greatly as people continue coming online, congestion will be a major issue, Donck said. Regulators should require operators to invest in network capacity, he said.
There’s plenty of transparency at the network level; trouble comes at the applications and services layer, said Vangelis Ouzounis, who manages the European Network Information Security Agency resilience and critical information infrastructure program. The biggest risks to the Internet are privacy invasions and security lapses arising from how people use services and how providers treat users, he said.
There are obvious cases in which data must be prioritized, Ouzounis said. Operators can’t ensure that specific online services will be available to particular users, he said. He cited recent events in Japan, where some services had to yield to others to deal with the catastrophes. But, he said, it’s hard to see how openness and transparency can work in a market with prioritized services.
The principle of net neutrality is still relevant, said Cammaerts. But, like other ideals people aspire to but never reach, it may never mean that all data packets are equal, he said.
The neutrality debate is the wrong context in which to force operators to boost network capacity, because that goes against the EU’s concept of a liberalized telecom market with competition, Grob said. If providers aren’t allowed to profit from their investments, networks won’t be built, he said. The Internet must be kept open, accessible and reliable, but operators must be allowed to charge users for the quality they've come to rely on, Grob said. The way to guarantee end-users the quality they need and pay for is for standards bodies to agree on quality classifications, he said.