Net Neutrality Debate Shows No Sign of Abating in UK

LONDON -- EU politicians are "bewitched" by net neutrality, but the current debate won't lead to desired outcomes, said Centre for European Policy Studies Senior Researcher Andrea Renda Tuesday at the Digital Regulation Forum. The subject is still alive and unresolved in Europe and the U.S., said regulators, analysts, companies and a consumer representative.

Panelists disagreed what "net neutrality" means. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said the question of how to define net neutrality is shifting. Mark Page, A.T. Kearney U.K. managing partner and global leader for communications, media and technology, said he takes the "minimalist" view that it means openness and equal opportunities to engage on the Internet. For the European Consumer Organisation, net neutrality involves protecting the economic model of the best-effort Internet and avoiding gatekeepers, said Senior Policy Officer Guillermo Beltrà. BT thinks net neutrality means not impeding traffic and giving customers the content they want, said Group Industry Policy Director Julian Ashworth. Net neutrality is something invented to make people feel good about a "free Internet," said John Strand, CEO of telecom/media/information technology consultant Strand Consult.

Asked whether competition rules for ISPs and mobile providers could remove the need for net neutrality measures, Pai said the FCC rules, with which he disagrees, lower incentives for smaller providers that don't have the resources to comply with reporting requirements. On the question of how to ensure quality of service, Pai said that from the FCC's perspective, its net neutrality regulations exempt specialized services such as health, but that the issue of how "reasonable" network management is must be must be sorted out over time. Moreover, he added, quality of service arrangements may be seen by some as offering specialized services.

Europe has been talking about net neutrality for 12 years but has yet to discuss the evidence, Renda said. It has been debated in the context of the "connected continent" telecom reform package proposed by the European Commission, but governments aren't ready to adopt an evidence-based approach, he said. If policymakers don't scale up the debate in a way that looks at the facts, they won't get to a meaningful decision, he said. Negotiations on neutrality legislation are under way in a "trialogue" among the EC, Council and European Parliament, with the next round scheduled for May 12, said FTI Consulting Director Marzena Rembowski.

To some extent, telcos hope the net neutrality debate will go away, said KPN European Affairs Director Jos Huigen. Industry wants a principles-based approach with more guidance from regulators and some flexibility, he said. The discussion should be between regulators and professionals rather than about Internet freedom and choice, he said. Net neutrality legislation is a Band-Aid for a perceived lack of competition, said BT's Ashworth. ISPs block traffic for several specific reasons and no others, he said. With competition, there's every incentive for ISPs to live up to the code of net neutrality, he said. Users shouldn't be barred from accessing parts of the Internet because of operators' commercial interests, said Beltrà.

There are several policy goals behind net neutrality talks, said Renda. These are the need for online anonymity; the desire for competition and fair business practices; the need for innovation; the desire to give users access to any content anywhere on any device; the call for Internet openness; and the wish to safeguard freedom of expression and medial plurality, he said. These won't be achieved if total net neutrality is imposed, he said.

Complete anonymity is no longer a reality because of concerns about security, copyright protection and law enforcement, said Renda. Competition and fair business practices were originally meant to protect over-the-top (OTT) players from ISPs' market power, but it's since been discovered that market power can be distributed at any layer of the Internet ecosystem, he said. "The jury is out" on innovation, because it's unclear whether too-high or too-low entry barriers make a difference, he said. There's also a question about whether net neutrality would actually boost user choice, he said. Openness is also at issue, because Apple's iPods and iTunes built the first legal music services, which led to the creation of new business models, Renda said. He said he's also not convinced that net neutrality is good for media plurality because that requires content exposure, and applying neutrality at the Internet infrastructure and higher layers could polarize end-users' attention on the most popular results.

"Net neutrality is not the end game," said Rembowski. The EC digital single market proposal, due May 6, suggests there are much tougher battles ahead for industry, and net neutrality shouldn't be a "red herring," she said.

Do OTT players such as Netflix have a role in the net neutrality debate? Given the way the EU views competition, OTT companies should be classified as a new type of telecom operator, said Strand. The OTT industry is no longer a new one needing special protections, and it can look after its own interests, said Page.