The Dutch Parliament yesterday agreed to make the Netherlands the first nation in Europe to officially put net neutrality principles into law. The law will force ISPs and telecom operators to ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network.
The new telecom law has won a near unanimous vote, despite fierce opposition from telecom operators, who had been planning to charge for over-the-top services, such as Skype or WhatsApp Messenger, which bypass traditional cellular communications. Vodafone Netherlands is currently still blocking the use of Skype on its 3G mobile network.
Facing sharp criticism, the largest Dutch political party – the liberal VVD – withdrew an amendment which would still allow carriers and ISPs to charge extra for services. The proposal came from Afke Schaart, who until last year was Director of Public Affairs for KPN, the biggest telecom operator in the Netherlands.
I gave them +1,000,000 Internets for that elsewhere..ISP shenanigans nipped in the bud ;-)).No excuse for the rest of 'em now..
piatkow
12:25 pm on Jun 10, 2011 (gmt 0)
Nice one, of course I suppose there could always be some sort challenge that it was contrary to European "single market" rules.
By preventing ISPs from charging a premium for resource hungry services they are going beyond what is necessary for "net neutrality" in my view. Charging extra for VOIP or music downloads is fine in my view as long as you have equal access to all providers.
graeme_p
7:02 am on Jun 20, 2011 (gmt 0)
@piatkow, the problem with that is that it becomes a loophole to let them charge high rates for services that compete with their own services like voice phone calls and SMS.
If a service is resource hungry they can charge more for the resources used. Instead of charging more for VOIP, they can charge per Gb.
piatkow
8:06 am on Jun 20, 2011 (gmt 0)
If a service is resource hungry they can charge more for the resources used. Instead of charging more for VOIP, they can charge per Gb.
My prefered solution too but I think that the public are now too used to "all you can eat" tarrifs. I did also say of course that equal access to all providers is required. Of course if a couple of courts would set aside "fair use" conditions and say that the term "unlimited", like virginity, is not capable of being qualified then things might change.
graeme_p
3:41 pm on Jun 20, 2011 (gmt 0)
I love that analogy!
The most resource hungry service is video, and if you equally throttle all video you will have very unhappy customers, so I suspect the Dutch rules will force the ISPs to make all packages either genuine unlimited (and priced appropriately) or charge by usage - simply because the other options are closed off.
