[cooperation-wg] EP "Connected Continent" and Internet Fast Lane provisions?

Hi all,

I am a citizen from Holland that closely follows the stuff that Ziggo is
currently doing. I can give you some background information and some
interesting facts about it. Ziggo and UPC are 2 big cable companies in
Holland. Ziggo is a fusion between multiple cable companies, that laid down
cable systems in the 70's in every city because they had problems with
everyone putting a receiver on their roof. Because of that, the government
asked for companies to gather this signal and broadcast them over the
"cable". Since the companies laid down the whole cable system per city, and
because of some agreements from that time they now still "own" the cable.
KPN (the biggest telephone company in holland) however used to be
governmental property, and because of that there was a law that prohibited
them from closing the system because everyone should be able to call the
emergency services. Also, since their cable was governmental property, they
had to open up the infrastructure for everyone. Thats why everyone is able
to use ADSL, however cable television/internet is still controlled by the
local cable company.

>From what I have understood from all the mailing surrounding Ziggo is that
they are planning to sell "guaranteed bandwidth". Think of it like VLAN
with QoS, where VoIP has more priority than normal http traffic. This will
actually give some interesting facts: They can for example  "squeeze" your
internet connection when they think its becoming too prohibitive on their
communication channel or sell very cheap (but slow) internet connections,
and will charge you extra if you want to "unlock" certain speeds for
selective websites. They wont "disallow" you to reach the website, however
watching netflix movies in HD for example will be made difficult. Dutch law
as it currently stands is very restrictive in squeezing, and only allows
squeezing if its purpose is used to limit traffic congestion. This is the
reason why youtube movies cannot be watched inside the NS trains, because
they are connected with 3G networks and thus the network will be congested
if too many people start watching youtube.

Ziggo is already using this same practice on his television channels:
Currently there are a very few channels you can watch by cable, and are of
very bad quality. If you like to watch in HD or better resolution, you have
to pay extra bucks for a "premium" subscription. You can watch the free
channels, however they are so limited and of such quality that you actually
HAVE to switch to a paid digital channel with the newer televisions.

For those that dont understand what I am saying, is best explained with a
bicycle pump. The pump is the internet and the flow of air is your internet
connection. You pay for the flow of air, however when you want to watch
netflix, you have to pay ziggo to make the hole temporarely bigger so you
can get an extra boost of netflix air. If you dont pay, then it will just
take longer for your wheel to get filled.

Technically this practice still falls under "net neutrality", because they
dont distinguish what you are watching but only offer you "guaranteed
internet speeds" or a "boost" for certain websites and/or IP adress ranges.
However, looking at their dominance, I can only see troubles arising since
they control over 80% of dutch cable television and currently dont have any
competition (there is no law that makes them provide access to their
network of cables).

Julius


On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 7:13 PM, Meredith Whittaker <
meredithrachel at google.com> wrote:

> I'm not a student of EU governmental process. However, I see value
> generally in a technical review of and pushback on technically vague and
> possibly untenable legislation. Whatever stage the draft is at, exposing
> the potential implications, and allowing open public debate seems positive.
>
> I'd love to see sane advocates push for specific answers to questions
> raised in such a document, and gather support for broader accountability
> and discourse.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Gordon Lennox <gordon.lennox.13 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> A sort of recap:
>>
>> The proposal from the Commission did not come out of the blue. There were
>> discussions of various kinds and we can be pretty sure that members of RIPE
>> were involved.* Whether there was joined-up-thinking within those
>> organisations is maybe out of scope here.
>>
>> The proposal was then adopted by the Commission and forwarded to the
>> other institutions quite some time ago - September last year. Then it
>> became public.
>>
>> Discussions in Council tend not to be that visible - they are between
>> governments. People can always however contact their own favourite
>> government minister.
>>
>> Discussions in the Parliament have been more visible. Individual MEPs
>> have looked at the proposal. There have been meetings. Lobbyists have
>> lobbied.** Commentators have commented. And Committees have met. And again
>> we can be pretty sure that members of RIPE were involved.
>>
>> The Committees which wanted to vote have now voted and we are now about
>> two weeks from a probable plenary vote.
>>
>> So it is too late to do anything? Maybe. But as has been pointed out
>> everybody is looking forward to the elections.
>>
>> Would it be useful if this bit of the RIPE community wrote? I am not
>> sure. Agreeing a text and sending it "on behalf of" within a week? Not
>> easy. Then again others who wish the proposal to go through would find it
>> very easy to shoot such a thing down. They have their technical experts too.
>>
>> Maybe it would be better if everybody here - and their friends! - wrote
>> individually to as many MEPs as they thought useful.
>>
>> But what would folk be asking for?
>>
>> Asking for clarification? No. Nobody has time for that now.
>>
>> Throw out the whole proposal? Including the bit on roaming and just
>> before the summer holidays?
>>
>> Throw out the NN bit - which articles? A bit drastic. But based on the
>> fact that it is just not clear?
>>
>> Modify the NN bit - the bit they have already discussed and discussed?
>> And what would we propose, jointly or individually?
>>
>> Push it all back to the new parliament? Including the bit on roaming and
>> just before the summer holidays?
>>
>> Push back the NN bit?
>>
>> Or...?
>>
>> Gordon
>>
>> * Is any member of ETNO or ECTA not also a member or RIPE?
>>
>> ** I would guess for example Google had  a say.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Meredith Whittaker
> Program Manager, Google Research
> Google NYC
>
>
>
>
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