Transparency and opportunities in a consumer perspectiv

(Se talen på netvideo)
Hent TACD's resolution om netneutralitet (pdf).

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Internet allows almost infinite possibilities of access to knowledge, culture and diversity; it has become essential for citizen participation in society whether it concerns political matters, finding a job, improving skills or exercising rights in relation to government services.
Limiting citizens’ ability to connect to and communicate on the Internet in practice means to be cut off from civic and cultural life.
Network neutrality must be seen in this context! Consumers care for network neutrality and are deeply concerned about what type of regulation we need to preserve it.
Seen from a commercial point of view – and also from a service quality point of view – clearly network neutrality is a stumbling block. Compare it to a road infrastructure in a modern society. Anyone can go on the road whenever he or she likes it – clearly this means traffic jams at certain hours and less predictable journey times.

However, no democratic societies have yet allowed road authorities, bus or freight operators or taxi companies the right to decide how other agents should access the road network. Road congestion is a fact and the costs linked to it also – however to preserve the right of free movement incentive-based solutions are implemented such as toll roads, congestions charges or special bus and taxi lanes. The freedom on the net is at least as important as the freedom of movement so let us discuss it in the same way.

New technologies at router level can help to prioritize delay-sensitive applications such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This can in principle benefit consumers as these technologies support quality of services by discriminating delay-insensitive applications such as email or web browsing.

But the technology also raises serious concerns for consumers, citizens and of course for content providers. It allows network operators to block, degrade or prioritize the data transmission service for particular Internet content providers.

This type of interference in point to point communication already includes
• limiting certain types of Internet usage during periods of the day with heavy traffic
• blocking applications or devices that go against the network operators’ own financial interests
• and prioritizing content from sources owned by the network operator

The technique used reduces the consumer’s range of choices and bandwidth availability without him or her being necessarily aware of this kind of intervention. In fact, the technology may also be used to "double dip" by charging consumers twice for high-speed Internet access.

In the medieval age tolls were charged from merchants by lords at strategic points such as bridges or city gates for the usage of the roads in the county. Control over a nation’s broadband infrastructure could create the taxing lords of today’s information society.

In a worst case scenario consumers would lose the opportunity to choose their own content on the Internet or the ability to access content that is not approved by the provider such as criticism of a company or a country.

Access to alternative information and sources could be restricted or slowed down, in practice forcing consumers to buy content only from the network owner or operator.

Discriminating operators could become a threat to freedom of expression and information on the Internet.

If network providers remain unregulated regarding net neutrality it is likely that the Internet will end up having a traditional cable or satellite TV architecture where consumers have been locked in package deals.

So we would like to approach the Internet from the perspective of rights: consumer organisations have formulated these rights as follows:

In a network neutral Internet consumers should have the right
• to attach devices of their choice;
• to access or provide content, services, and applications of their choice;
• to have this access free of discrimination according to source, destination, content or type of application.

This implies that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and communications networks should
1. not unfairly block content, applications or devices;
2. not degrade access for content, applications, or devices;
3. not prioritize data according to source or destination and
4. not discriminate against particular providers of content, applications, services, or devices.

We call these demands the four freedoms that are essential to a well-functioning information society.

Certain market players, both national and international, have already demonstrated discriminatory actions that would put an end to neutral communication. Network neutrality has been circumvented, for instance when broadband providers censor the emails and websites of broadband telephony services that compete with the broadband providers’ own services.

Such examples illustrate the technical power and determination of broadband providers to infringe network neutrality even where no significant market power or dominance exists.

The current telecom regime is designed to promote competition between network operators and is not well equipped to deal with network neutrality problems. In some cases, competition law may of course apply when network operators block specific content and no alternative network operator is available. But most problems of network neutrality, such as degrading, are much harder to catch with general competition rules.

Regulation is thus necessary.

The newly proposed regime now covers disputes between network operators and content providers but in our view it is not enough to ensure that network neutrality is secured.

The Commission has nevertheless proposed several provisions on information requirement and the possibility to set minimum service requirements that address network neutrality problems. I will not go through these in detail but the point to make is this: will this approach be sufficient to ensure the neutrality of the internet.

We are very sceptical as to whether information and minimum service requirements will be enough to allow consumers to exercise their market power. Only highly sophisticated consumers would be competent to evaluate and choose provider according to such technical issues.

The fourth of the Internet freedoms addressed earlier, i.e. not to deny prioritisation services to certain content providers while offering it to others, is not at all addressed in the proposed framework. The argument from the Commission is that there is a welfare effect of including the possibility of prioritization – and that competition law will be enough to avoid misuse.

We do however not agree with this position.

There will in practice be strong incentives for Internet Service Providers to reserve these services to favoured content providers. Switching costs and high entry barriers could in addition affect the content provider detrimentally.

Yet, the issue at stake, preserving an open Internet, is too important to take chances on.

We therefore believe that a reference to our four Internet freedoms in the proposed Telecom package with flexible regulatory intervention is urgently needed. Additional transparency rules with regard to prioritisation services are also needed to complement the proposed directives.

To conclude let me repeat:

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and communications networks should

1. not unfairly block content, applications or devices
2. not degrade access for content, applications or devices
3. not prioritise data according to source or destination and
4. not discriminate against particular providers of content, applications, services or devices

These principles should be enshrined in the new regulatory regime and regulators be empowered to respond quickly and effectively against misconduct.