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

Dear Julius,

many thanks for your exhaustive explanations.

Yes, as long as the premium service of Ziggo is non-discriminatory (i.e. it will enhance quality or speed for any kind of service/application) NN is not manifestly infringed.
However, a problem may arise in case only selected OTT and content providers may afford the premium connectivity (it depends on the tariff scheme). In addition, if the best effort Internet is squeezed by the premium connectivity, then you have a scenario of 2-tier Internet.
Should Ziggo be acquired by UPC, the resulting reinforced dominant position could encourage the larger ISP to make policy and business practices even less neutral.
The current Open Internet compromise amendment (voted by ITRE) seems to address the case of deterioration of best effort Internet as a consequence of specialized services offers. By contrast, the compromise does not address a case of discriminations of price connectivity (unlike the Dutch legislation). To the opposite, price discrimination would be legalized under this European reform.
Ciao,
Inno


-----------------------------------------
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Il giorno 20/mar/2014, alle ore 21:28, Julius ter Pelkwijk <pelkwijk at gmail.com> ha scritto:

> 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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