Competition commissioner vows to uphold net neutrality

Intervention threatened if carriers stray from "best efforts"

Commission will keep an eye on carriers

The European competition commissioner has vowed to use regulation to preserve the principle of net neutrality.

“The commission is committed to preserving the open and neutral character of the internet in Europe,” Joaquín Almunia, vice president of the European Commission responsible for competition policy, told an audience of telecoms executives and economists at a conference in Madrid. “I will intervene every time the conduct of a dominant operator causes harm to competition and consumers.”

Net neutrality is the principle that every legal data packet travelling across the internet should be transmitted equally by network operators applying their "best efforts". Proponents of net neutrality argue that if operators were to discriminate against packets, on whatever grounds, they would stifle innovation by raising barriers to entry for content and application providers to the detriment of consumers and business.

Of course, operators already discriminate against certain types of traffic, filtering out spam and malware and often slowing peer-to-peer traffic in favour of other types. This is especially true on mobile networks where traffic shaping is used extensively to manage congestion.

But this is the limit the commission will tolerate, said Almunia.

“Operators can always differentiate data to guarantee quality of service or to protect their networks from congestion and security threats,” he said. “But, apart from these forms of maintenance, I will not accept practices that distort competition and discriminate among market players.”

Almunia’s words would have gone down well with the hosts of the conference: the Network for Economic Research on Electronic Communications (NEREC) which publishes an annual report on the Commission’s performance on telecoms issues. The first half of the conference in Madrid was spent discussing the next annual report.

“[The competition commissioner] is essentially saying: ‘carry on with business as usual, but I’ll be keeping an eye on you’. It’s a diplomatic warning to some of Europe’s less-enlightened carriers who might be tempted to stray,” said one attendee.

The UK and the US

While the net neutrality debate has raged hotly in the US, where two main carriers dominate internet access, Europeans believe their regulatory system, which forces network owners to open their networks to competitors, inherently avoids the danger of dominant operators stitching up deals with large content providers.

Indeed, despite bouts of whinging against BT, the UK applies this principle rigorously and is recognised as having one of the most competitive fixed broadband markets in the world.

“Our regulatory system of network access reduces the concerns about discriminatory behaviour – customers will usually have an alternative they can switch to – but it does not eliminate those concerns altogether,” said Almunia.

However, of specific concern are mobile networks, where traffic shaping to avoid congestion often includes banning VoIP services, especially in the UK. Almunia is clearly aware of this.

“In particular, I believe that the people who want to switch to mobile broadband should be able to use the features and services of an open internet,” he told the conference.

At a conference in London in September to discuss net neutrality, representatives of VoIP service provider Skype voiced strong objections to what they see as clear discrimination on the part of mobile network operators.

“We worry when we hear excuses for traffic management that disguise anti-competitive purposes,” said Jean Jacques Sahel, European director of government and regulatory affairs at Skype.

However, Almunia does not think new regulation is required to address the issue.

“Existing competition rules already give us the tools to look into network neutrality issues,” he said.

UK regulator Ofcom has taken a similar line after reviewing its responses to its recent consultation on net neutrality.

“Ofcom is committed to dealing swiftly with problems as they emerge, but we are also committed to approach issues in such as way as not to assume a problem before a problem has emerged,” Ofcom international director Alex Bowers told an audience of telecoms professionals at the Westminster e-Forum in London in September.

“We will not regulate ahead of a problem and impose a market structure on the industry,” he added.