The European Union (EU) adopted the Regional Network Neutrality Regulation (formally known as the "Open Internet Regulation", hereinafter "EU Regulation") in October 2015, and it will come into effect on April 30 of the following year in member countries. Five years have passed at the earliest since the start of. At that time, the controversy over the FCC rules continued in the United States, which preceded net neutrality regulations, and it was expected that most of the rules would be invalidated if the Democratic Party changed to the Republican Party (with the birth of the Trump administration). It actually happened). For that reason, there is a conflict between the opinion that "a European bastion that protects the freedom of the Internet" and the opinion that "the addition of excessive regulations exceeds that of the United States" regarding the establishment of EU regulations, and the whereabouts of the EU are drawing a lot of attention worldwide. collected. The overheating of the political debate is due to the EU Regulation Enforcement Guidelines announced in August 2016 by BEREC (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications), an organization consisting of top telecommunications regulators from member countries. Regarding the BEREC guideline), it is shown that more than 480,000 opinions were received in the consultation at the draft stage (Note).
(Note) BEREC is a top-ranked advisory and advisory body for EU communication regulations in general, and the establishment of enforcement guidelines is also stipulated in the provisions of EU regulations.
The net neutrality dispute has a fairly broad side, including freedom of expression and protection of media diversity. Among them, the aspect of "fairness of traffic management" is most related to the daily work of network operators. Many articles of the EU Regulation (mainly Articles 3 and 4) address the issue, and most of the annual monitoring reports on the implementation of the Regulation, issued by Member States, are also on traffic management. Describes whether there is a problem. However, for most EU citizens (Internet users), arbitrary and unfair traffic management is not perceived as a large-scale routine, and even looking back over the past five years, it is actually. There was no such example. Therefore, in Europe today, the problem of net neutrality, that is, traffic management, has become a regulatory theme that is rarely recognized by general consumers.
[Fig. 1] Five years of EU net neutrality rules (Source: Created by the author)
In response to such circumstances, the EU announced the results of the first periodic review of the rule in April 2019, but did not revise it, saying that "the rule is working without problems". Since the rules were not revised, the BEREC guidelines would normally be left unchanged, but the revised guidelines were announced in June 2020 to provide more detailed and clear guidelines. As an example of clarification, the title of the document has been changed from "Guidelines for Net Neutrality Regulations" to "Guidelines for Open Internet Regulations" which conforms to the official name of EU regulations. However, other controversial themes other than traffic management (such as infringement of media diversity) were also consulted on the draft revised guidelines, as there were no major violations after the enactment of EU regulations in 2016. The number of opinions was 0.01% (52) of the opinions at the time of the establishment of the above-mentioned first edition guidelines.
This stable regulatory theme is proof that there are few problematic acts, but it is important for EU regulators to continuously monitor "whether there is a deviation from the rules". Both BEREC and its member states are announcing the results of monitoring the implementation of EU regulations on an annual basis. In this paper, I would like to summarize the current status and issues of EU regulations five years after their enforcement by analyzing the results.
Since 2017, one year after the EU regulations came into force in member countries, countries have published their implementation status in an annual monitoring report. In addition, their eye-catcher, BEREC, has compiled a comprehensive report on behalf of the EU. Summarizing the past four BEREC monitoring reports up to 2020, the following characteristics are highlighted throughout the EU.
[Figure 2] 2020 Annual Monitoring Report on the Implementation of EU Regulations (Cover) -Member States (Germany Example) (Left) and BEREC Report (Right) (Source: BNetzA (2020.4) Net Neutrality in Germany Annual Report 2019/2020, BEREC)
(Note) Premium bandwidth service that guarantees QoS. It is also called "paid priority transmission" in the United States and other countries. The EU describes examples such as "VoLTE, real-time medical care, M2M".
Hereinafter, 1 to 3 will be described in detail.
Not limited to EU regulations, 1-1 of the world's net neutrality regulations is "prohibition of unjustified blocking and throttling." Indeed, recently, there have been no cases of major businesses continuing to violate the problem for a long time. The conclusion in BEREC's first (2017) monitoring report also states, "The treatment of blocking and traffic discrimination has been consistently (correctly) addressed by the regulatory bodies of member countries, and there were generally no problems. It was something like. Subsequent monitoring reports include cases in which some countries and some businesses restricted tethering and Wi-Fi calling and received investigations and corrective orders from regulators. However, many of them have been corrected according to the instructions of the authorities.
Among the items pointed out in the blocking and throttling items of the latest 2020 BEREC monitoring report, the case of EU2 major powers (Germany and France) is introduced. There was debate as to whether the built-in filtering function corresponds to blocking. Regulatory views were that EU regulations did not uniformly prohibit them, but could be provided if certain conditions were met. In France, a survey was conducted on cases where Internet access from airplanes and trains was restricted.
In the world of broadband, especially mobile broadband with limited frequency resources, bandwidth control in a broad sense such as setting a monthly data usage upper limit (so-called data cap) and slowing down after exceeding the upper limit is routine. It is carried out in. What do EU regulations think about this? In conclusion, both EU regulations and BEREC guidelines are accepted because they are "limited in frequency resources" and "not an act of targeting a specific user or content". Excerpting them from the relevant section of the Guidelines, "(§34) Agreeing on a rate for a particular amount of data and speed would not be a limitation on the exercise of end-user rights", "(§35) Allowed. Possible business practices ... include practices that allow end users to access the ISP's customer service to purchase additional data when the data limit is reached. " There is. In fact, many member countries offer broadband menus that include data caps and slowdowns beyond that.
BEREC's monitoring report devotes many pages to the provision of zero-rating (count-free) services and analysis of review status. This is because the service has already been provided in many countries since the EU regulation came into effect (2016), and in some countries there was a dispute between regulators and providers. According to the monitoring report (2017 edition), which was first published one year after the rule came into effect, 4 of the 30 countries surveyed (28 EU member states + Norway and Iceland) did not receive a zero rating. There were only countries (Estonia, Finland, Slovakia, Slovenia). The report sets the number of countries that have conducted regulatory reviews on the zero ratings offered, and provides an overview of the reviews for six of them. Table 1 summarizes this.
[Table 1] Status of major zero-rating examinations at the time of 2017 (Source: Created by the author from the BEREC Monitoring Report (2017 version))
The following three types of points became problematic in the examination of the six cases in Table 1.
As is clear from Table 1, the zero rating was often found to be a violation of EU regulations if the above three points were not observed from the time of 2017. It hasn't changed even now. However, some network operators found to be in breach have filed a lawsuit against the decision of their own regulatory body, dissatisfied with the decision. The most well-known case is the German "StreamOn" proceeding, which is also listed in the table. In this case, service provider T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom (DT)'s mobile business unit) filed a remedial order with the German regulator BNetzA in January 2018 in the Cologne Administrative Court. At the time of writing this article, the proceedings have moved to the EU level (EU Court of Justice) and the proceedings are continuing. I would like to explain the process in a little more detail below.
On December 15, 2017, BNetzA announced that T-Mobile's Zero Rating StreamOn service will be available in light of Article 3 (3) of the EU Regulations and the "Roam-Like-At-Home (RLAH)" Principles (Note). Some have found themselves in violation of the rules.
(Note) In response to the EU's decision to abolish the retail price of mobile international roaming within the EU, subscribers should be able to use the zero rating outside their own country within the EU under the same conditions as their own country.
Here, BNetzA has asked T-Mobile to implement the following two points by March 31, 2018.
In January 2018, T-Mobile filed a complaint with the Cologne Administrative Court against the BNetzA order, which and the North Rhine-Westphalia Superior Administrative Court granted legality to the immediate enforcement of the BNetzA order. In response, DT has stopped bandwidth reduction (slotting) to SD (480p) on August 9, 2019. However, the main issue is whether the customer-consensual reduction of video bandwidth violates the principle of fairness stipulated in Article 3 (3) of the EU Regulations. , The Cologne Administrative Court has entrusted the decision to the EU Court of Justice, and the decision is drawing attention.
According to BNetzA's latest (2020) monitoring report, as a result of investigating StreamOn Social & Chat, which DT has provided as a zero rating for SNS since June 2019, Article 3 (1) of the EU Regulations ) And (2) conclude that there was no significant infringement of end-user rights. The reason is that the principle of Article 3 (3) that all traffic should be treated fairly was maintained, there was no throttling, and there was a charge for partners participating in this zero rating. It was never done, and the conditions for participation were open, transparent, and non-discriminatory. In addition, DT and Vodafone of Germany have added gaming apps to their zero-rating products, but there is also a serious infringement of end-user rights under Articles 3 (1) and (2) of the EU Regulations. It is written that it did not.
On the other hand, the EU Court of Justice has made a preliminary decision regarding the preferential treatment (exemption of slowdown) of zero-rating content when the monthly data limit is exceeded. The proceeding is a case in which a zero-rating service called MyChat and MyMusic provided by a subsidiary of Telenor, a major Norwegian network operator (Telenor Hungary), excludes the target service from slowdown. Hungarian regulator NMHH has called for a suspension of service, alleging that Telenor's traffic control violates Article 3 (3) "fair and non-discriminatory treatment" of EU regulations, but dissatisfied with it. Telenor has filed an NMHH decision. Telenor says that since MyChat and MyMusic are included in the contract based on the agreement with the user, only Article 3 (2) of the EU Regulation applies and only regulates unilateral traffic management by Internet access operators. He argued that Article 3 (3) did not apply. However, on September 15, 2020, the EU Court of Justice ruled that Telenor's zero-rating practices violated Articles 3 (2) and (3) of the EU Regulations in support of NMHH.
Specialized services in net neutrality regulations mean services that are allocated bandwidth to guarantee high quality in order to achieve higher-performance broadband performance than usual. For example, in the case of diagnosis or surgery by telemedicine, it is necessary to guarantee high-definition and high-speed transmission of images without interruption. EU regulations refer to specialized services as "Optimized services" in the sense that they are assigned optimal broadband quality according to the service. But it's not all good to allow unlimited services. There is concern that allocating more resources (frequency and bandwidth) to a particular service may adversely affect other services and users. It's also difficult to determine what constitutes a "specialized" service that should be distinguished from others.
Some advocates of net neutrality have called Specialized Services "Priority Lanes" and criticized them as unfair preferential treatment for certain services. However, EU regulations are more realistic: "Public electronic communication providers, including Internet access service providers, and content, applications, and service providers are specific to content, applications, and services. If optimization is needed to meet quality level requirements, we must be free to provide non-Internet access services optimized for specific content, applications, services, or a combination thereof. " (Article 3 (5)) is clearly stated. However, he continues that the following conditions should be observed for that purpose.
In this way, the EU maintains a flexible stance on the provision of specialized services (optimized services), but what do you envision as specific services? The EU Regulation Enforcement Guidelines (revised) released by BEREC in June 2020 address examples of specialized services such as "VoLTE, linear broadcast IPTV, real-time medical services (eg remote surgery), and public interest. Five types of "some services, some of the new M2M communication services" are listed (Note). At first glance, this definition is broad and it would not be possible to determine whether a particular service would be recognized as a Specialized Service without a case-by-case review.
(Note) Of these, "some services in the public interest, some of the new M2M communication services" are examples that were described in the preamble 16 of the EU Regulation from the beginning, not the guidelines.
Analyzing relevant parts of BEREC's 2020 Monitoring Report, the broadness of this definition is directly reflected in the variability of surveys on Specialized Services among Member States. For Germany, for example, it states that it has not conducted any research or review of Specialized Services in the past year. Looking back at past reports up to 2017, there is no statement that any particular measures were taken in the country, including investigations. In the Czech Republic, on the other hand, it is stated that the regulatory agency conducted an investigation after the citizens complained about the ISP's announcement regarding the speed and definition of IPTV (results were judged to be okay). In addition, Slovak regulators said that IPTV, on-demand video (VOD), and VPN (virtual private line) may be specialized services, and market research has grasped the spread. It is possible to criticize the above variations due to the ambiguity of EU regulations, but the EU does not want to hinder innovation in new technologies (M2M, etc.), and is a high-quality Internet service. It seems that the buds are not picked in advance, but rather follow a broad (ambiguous) definition.
It is the treatment of 5G that may be controversial in the future. In the first edition (2016) of the BEREC guidelines, 5G was mentioned in only one footnote. It is "5G" in the text (§101) that states that "ISPs and content application providers are conditionally permitted to provide Specialized Services as stipulated in Article 3 (5) of the EU Regulations." Network slicing in the network may be used to provide specialized services. " However, this footnote has been removed in the revised Guidelines (2020), and the word "5G" is nowhere to be found. This is because it can be difficult to uniformly determine how the virtual partitioning (slicing) of the network and prioritizing bandwidth will affect other users, so 5G is in the context of Specialized Services. It seems that BEREC has decided that it should be refrained from explaining. On the other hand, as shown in Figure 3, the EU has high expectations for the utilization of 5G in fields that require specialized services such as eHealth, and attention will be paid to how the relationship with the net neutrality discussion will develop in the future. To.
[Fig. 3] The EU promotes the use of 5G for eHealth, etc. on its public relations site (Source: European Commission (EC) 5G public relations site (“Towards 5G”))
Net neutrality regulations, which have been less common in Europe these days, have attracted attention due to the epidemic of the new coronavirus disease, which began to rage around the world from the beginning of 2020. In other words, due to the drastic increase in Internet traffic due to lockdown and large fluctuations in peak hours (movement from night to day), the capacity of network operators' lines and servers exceeded the limit, and targets were selected for a long period of time. It was expected that traffic would have to be restricted. Against this background, the EU not only allowed exceptional traffic control, but also actively encouraged operators to implement it in March 2020, as shown in Figure 4. The author explained this fact in the May issue of this magazine ("COVID-19: Issues faced by sudden lifestyle changes in the information and telecommunications industry") as follows, so I would like to repost it (partially revised). Correction).
[Fig. 4] EC news release (March 19, 2020) telling streaming services, carriers, and users that they have appealed to avoid network congestion (Source: European Commission (EC) (2020.3.19) News release “Commission” and European regulators calls on streaming services, operators and users to prevent network congestion ”)
On the same day at the request of Commissioner Breton above, EC and BEREC jointly issued a statement allowing exceptional traffic management in an emergency in line with the EU's net neutrality rules. BEREC has promised to compile traffic management measures in response to the new corona epidemic in member countries and continuously publish them as a monitoring report. With this kind of endorsement of the EC, the regulatory bodies of some member countries have taken similar measures. Below is an example from Germany.
German regulator BNetzA said on March 25, 2020, "Network operators are taking all precautions to keep their networks as operational as possible. Net neutrality rules in the event of overload. It is possible to take the traffic management measures permitted in Germany. " He then created guidelines in the field of telecommunications and presented the following solutions and measures.
Here, BNetzA cited zero rating as an example of suspension, probably because entertainment content is the main target of zero rating in Germany, so it was regarded as an emergency service in an emergency. Conversely, some other EU member states have tentatively zero-rated access to information on new corona measures and important public services during this period.
As a result, the serious traffic congestion problem of concern did not occur in Europe, and the net neutrality problem did not continue to attract attention.
In this paper, when the EU's net neutrality rules come into effect in member states for the sixth year, not only the EU rules, but also the official material BEREC's EU rule enforcement guidelines, and the member states and BEREC's By looking back at the monitoring report on the implementation status of the regulations, we have clarified the current state of the EU's net neutrality regulation.
The relationship between network operators and platform operators has changed significantly over the last five years. Until the early 2010s, network operators' broadband services were considered a bottleneck for accessing platforms, and imposing non-discriminatory access obligations (ie, neutrality obligations) was considered essential. However, since then, the power of major platformers, especially GAFA, to control access to their platforms has increased rapidly. For example, with zero rating, it is becoming an obligation of network operators to open the door to all streaming operators who want to participate, but it is possible for any network operator's zero rating to converge to the same content. It means that there is sex. While it is becoming more difficult for network operators to feature zero rating as a marketing tool, streaming operators (platforms) with abundant content have the option to participate, so they are the zero rating service. It is also possible to influence the attractiveness.
Given the fact that network neutrality rules have been established in the EU and stable operation is being carried out, it can be said that the next issue has shifted to establishing neutrality in the platform. The EU is fully aware of this and has been developing various platform service related legislation over the last few years. In particular, the two bills adopted by the European Commission (EC) in December 2020, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), are fair to platform operators for users and competitors. We are trying to require fair and non-discriminatory treatment, and we are aiming for the neutrality of the platform.
We will continue to pay attention to future trends as to how the EU will balance the neutrality regulations of network operators and platform operators.