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European regulator group proposes that telco watchdogs judge zero-rating, ‘specialised services’ on case-by-case basis.
The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) on Monday launched a consultation seeking feedback on proposals for how to implement the EU’s net neutrality law.
The legislation, rubber-stamped in June 2015, prevents unfair blocking and connection-speed throttling, and the paid prioritisation of Web traffic. However, telcos are still allowed to provide so-called ‘specialised services’ like Internet TV, provided it does not degrade the performance of the public Internet.
BEREC’s consultation aims to hammer out the details, proposing, for instance, in the case of specialised services, that regulators should consider whether said service could be provided adequately using a best-effort connection. Furthermore, a service that is deemed to require special treatment today, might not qualify as a specialised service in future, once the general quality of the Internet has improved, BEREC said.
The consultation also addresses zero-rating, where the data traffic generated by a specific service or category of services, such as video, is free and does not count towards the customer’s data allowance.
Under BEREC’s proposed guidelines, continuing to provide access to zero-rated services once the customer has used up their data allowance would contravene EU net neutrality rules.
Regulators would also be advised to review the market strength of the ISP offering the zero-rated tariff and that of the service being zero-rated, and consider the impact that it could have on competition and end-user choice.
BEREC’s consultation also contains potentially good news for advertisers.
The section about prohibited traffic management practices specifically states that "ISPs should not block, slow down, alter, restrict, interfere with, degrade or discriminate advertising when providing an IAS (Internet access service)."
Ad-blocking would be permitted if carried out to prevent the spread of illegal content, viruses, or to mitigate temporary network congestion. Ad-blockers installed by users on their handsets would not break the rules, BEREC said.
However, it means that action taken by the likes of 3UK, which plans to trial network-level ad-blocking next week, could be breaking the rules.
BEREC’s consultation will close on 18 July.
