The EU is going to abandon its net neutrality policy which meant all videos, articles or web pages got the same amount of bandwidth. According to the draft regulation, richer internet providers will be able to buy themselves higher speeds.
The idea of granting equal portions of online traffic for
all content providers appears to be a utopia, as the European
Union, which formerly pledged its commitment to the principle,
might be getting ready to make a step in a different direction.
"Content providers and telecommunications providers are free
to negotiate agreements on volume tariffs and different qualities
of data transmission for internet users," the German business
daily Handelsblatt, which managed to obtain a copy of a draft
regulation by the European Union's Executive Commission, cites
the document as saying.
If the regulation is passed, Internet service providers (ISPs)
and telecoms will be able to charge their clients for better data
transmission.
Telecoms have long complained they have trouble keeping up with
the growing volume of data traffic. The web users’ current
uploading spree has prompted the US IT company Cisco to come up
with a forecast that online video traffic – the most voluminous
thing on the web - will double by 2017. ISP’s have to
constantly increase their capacity to deal with the situation, so
they want the soaring expenses to be covered by both the content
providers and by individual Internet users.
The EU draft regulation is intended to ease the burden of
inundated ISPs. As for content providers – giants like Google or
Facebook will most probably be unaffected, as they are able to
buy themselves a bigger slice of the bandwidth pie to ensure
their data is prioritized in networks. Smaller sites however,
will have to make do with virtual leftovers.
In April this year, German telecommunications giant Deutsche
Telekom announced a plan to reduce users' internet speed once a
certain monthly data limit had been reached. Those who want more
surfing capacity would have to pay. The company said it would
resort to the practice no earlier than 2016, a move that has
incited outrage among the he German public.
The EU Commission draft regulation, however, appears to be on the
side of Deutsche Telekom.
The concept of net neutrality is not completely gone from the
document, but now it is being defined not as equal bandwidth for
all, but as freedom of access to whatever content. The new
document says that all users will be free "to gain information
and content, and to distribute, to run applications and services
of their choice”.
The new definition has hardly been met with universal approval.
"What we've seen in terms of a draft law is not enough to
ensure network neutrality," Handelsblatt cites Philipp
Rösler, German Economics Minister, who is one of major opponents
to the new regulation.
Currently only the Netherlands, Slovenia and Chile hold the
principle of net neutrality concerning internet speeds codified
in law.