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European regulator group to share final net neutrality guidelines by end of August.
BEREC on Friday said the response to its net neutrality consultation was unprecedented, with the number of submissions reaching almost half a million.
The European regulator group drew up guidelines for how national telecoms authorities should implement the EU’s net neutrality rules, which were agreed upon in June 2015. BEREC’s consultation sought industry feedback on said guidelines; the deadline for submissions was 18 July.
"The BEREC office is currently processing the contributions received as planned. BEREC is focused on a thorough evaluation of the contributions and on the finalisation of the guidelines, in order for all relevant information to be efficiently submitted for adoption by the BEREC board of regulators on 25 August 2016," said BEREC, in a statement on Friday.
The rules are designed to prevent unfair blocking and connection-speed throttling, and the paid prioritisation of Web traffic. Telcos are still allowed to provide so-called ‘specialised services’ like Internet TV and critical communications, provided they do not degrade the performance of the public Internet.
Services like zero-rating – where the data traffic generated by a specific service or category of services does not count towards a customer’s data allowance – will effectively be judged on a case-by-case basis to ensure the practice does not harm competition or choice.
BEREC’s guidelines drew criticism from a group comprised of major European telcos and vendors, which warned that the rules regarding specialised services and traffic management risk creating uncertainty that could jeopardise 5G investments.
They were also criticised by open Internet advocates, which claimed that there were several loopholes that, if exploited by telcos, could cause harm to innovation.
BEREC said it will publish the outcome of its consultation and its final guideline for enforcing net neutrality on 30 August.
