The European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes presented on 19 April 2011 its report on net neutrality, which brings nothing significant to the table, except strengthening the "wait and see" approach already presented at the Net Neutrality Summit in November last year.
The Commission's report is already confirming the unequal treatment of Internet traffic, quoting the results of the survey made by BEREC (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications) in early 2010 in several EU member states:
- Limits on the speed of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing or video streaming by certain providers in France, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and the United Kingdom;
- Blocking or charging extra for the provision of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services in mobile networks by certain mobile operators in Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Romania.
However, the decision by Kroes is not to act, but to wait: "Together with national telecoms regulators, the Commission will spend 2011 closely looking at current market practices. At the end of 2011, I will present the findings and will publicly name operators engaging in doubtful practices."
And even if something is wrong, the problems will be related just to the correct information of the consumer: "I will be looking particularly closely for any instances of unannounced blocking or throttling of certain types of traffic, and any misleading advertising of broadband speeds. If I am not satisfied that consumers can counteract such practices by switching providers, I will not hesitate to introduce more stringent measures."
In fact the report itself praises the violations of the net neutrality principles, by supporting operators' claims: "It is widely accepted that network operators need to adopt some traffic management practices to ensure an efficient use of their networks and that certain IP services, such as for instance real-time IPTV and video conferencing, may require special traffic management to ensure a predefined high quality of service".
La Quadrature du Net has been quick in qualifying the report as disappointing. Jérémie Zimmermann explained: "Mrs Kroes hides behind false free-market arguments to do nothing at all, pretending that competition and consumer law can successfully address the issue. In most Member States, mobile phone operators agree on engaging in the very same discriminations in their so-called 'mobile Internet' offers. These operators simply do not offer access to the universal platform of communications we call 'the Internet'. By turning a blind eye on these practices, the Commission covers anti-competitive behaviours that hinder innovation and violate users' freedom of communication."
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.8/european-commission-net-neutrality-report