EU is no haven of Net neutrality

‘WE CONTINUE TO FIGHT’ Nevertheless, experts and regulators say it is an exaggeration to describe the EU situation as “no net neutrality”. EU rules still ban operators from blocking access to apps, which is what backers of net neutrality fear will now happen after the US regulator’s decision on Thursday to repeal the rules there.

However, Carlos Martins, a software programmer and blogger in Portugal, said MEO’s offers represented a threat to fragment the Internet. He likened it to the broadcasting industry, where content is split up into separate pay-TV channels.

“Unfortunately the tendency is for providers and telecoms to test the limits of the rules more and more, so the concern is that such offers will spread,” Martins said.

In Italy, mobile operator Wind Tre was banned this year from offering its own music app in a zerorating plan, meaning the app’s usage did not count toward the plan’s data cap. Once the cap was reached, the app could keep functioning while “general traffic” would slow down until more data was purchased. Wind Tre did not comment for this story. In making its decision, Italian regulator AGCOM cited the EU’s net neutrality policy, adopted in April last year, which states “providers of Internet access services shall treat all traffic equally, when providing Internet access services, without discrimination, restriction or interference”.

The policy is interpreted by national regulators which may have different views on the issue of zerorating, said Marco Pierani, a spokesman for Italian consumer group Altroconsumo.

“There are cases that can be interpreted differently depending on the country, which is absurd given that we should be a single digital market,” he said.

“It is a battle we continue to fight... Leaving the choice to the service providers creates a false market and places the choice in the hands of very few operators who are very strong.”

The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), has produced guidelines on zero-rating and acknowledges national regulators “are still at an early stage of the implementation of net neutrality rules”.

“The situation with zero-rating offers is not black and white,” BEREC chairman Sebastien Soriano told Reuters. The group expects to come up with a detailed report within 12 months to assist Brussels in a review of the regulations.

“We are applying these rules for a little more than a year. We ask for a little bit of time to be judged on that,” Soriano said, adding that national regulators were taking action.

“That MEO offer is a third kind of offer — so far the only one in Europe... but I assure you that it is under scrutiny by the Portuguese regulator ANACOM and it has not been cleared.”