EU: net neutrality just "arm wrestling" between companies - Ars Technica

Description

Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, says that an open Internet is "crucial" to Europe. But that doesn't mean a little traffic shaping, service prioritization, and discrimination won't be allowed.

In a September 2008 speech in Copenhagen , Reding told a network neutrality conference that "a cynical observer may note that in the end this whole Net Neutrality debate is about hard cash. Dollars and euros... This is just arm wrestling between big network providers and successful providers of Internet services."

According to a (sponsored) study from Synovate, 91 percent of European Internet users expect ISPs not to block or degrade services, but only 7 to 15 percent of Internet users would actually switch ISPs if that happened.

That doesn't sound like the position of someone inclined to push network openness rules into law, and indeed Reding has repeatedly make clear that she doesn't favor such an approach. Instead, she wants to rely on competition to solve any problems that arise—competition that does tend to exist more in Europe thanks to widespread line-sharing rules.

"Some proponents of Net Neutrality would like to see equal treatment for everyone cast in the Stone Tables of the Telecoms Reform," she said. "But we must recognise that openness for innovation sometimes cannot exclude legitimate network management practices. For instance, traffic prioritisation can sometimes be an important driver of value and growth for operators... In the end, it will be up to the consumers to decide to change to a provider that offers them what they would like."

Switching is hard work

The key question, of course, is whether consumers actually would switch ISPs to avoid abusive practices, which brings us up to this week, when Google, Skype, Yahoo, and other Internet companies offered some new research on the question. ...

Original URL

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/eu-net-neutrality-just-arm-wrestling-between-companies.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/eu-net-neutrality-just-arm-wrestling-between-companies.ars