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The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has confirmed that, over the course of the next year, it will begin a review of the existing Net Neutrality rules (i.e. these ensure no serious blocking or slowing of access to legal websites or internet services by broadband ISPs and mobile operators). The move follows a call by BT for greater flexibility.
The existing regulation was designed by the EU and UK Governments to protect the open internet from abuse, which essentially means that providers cannot impose excessive restrictions against internet traffic and should treat almost all of it equally (i.e. they generally shouldn’t favour specific services, such as by blocking or slowing access).
For example, the rules help to stop ISPs from favouring content sources based on who pays them the most money, which might in turn lead to a degraded experience for other users or services. Excessive access controls over content could one day result in a walled garden internet experience. Another risk is ISPs being allowed to block certain legal platforms (e.g. allowing one VoIP provider while blocking another).
In response, the Net Neutrality rules were devised, which in the UK are applied via somewhat of a soft self-regulatory approach (i.e. it may be better to think of them as guidelines), these are governed by the Broadband Stakeholder Group and their 2016 Open Internet Code. The code commits signatory ISPs to neutrality and transparency in traffic management on their networks.
Ofcom has generally taken a fairly soft approach to enforcement of this, preferring to nudge operators into changing their ways rather than being more aggressive with penalties. However, the big ISPs, particularly those with strong interests in the content (e.g. TV) space, have never fully given up on their desire for more flexibility and that was underlined last week by BT’s call for greater freedom.
An Ofcom spokesperson said (Telegraph): “Over the course of the next year we are planning to look at the existing framework for net neutrality to ensure we can continue to support innovation, while protecting consumers.”
At this point it’s worth remembering that demand for broadband and mobile data services would not exist without internet content providers (e.g. YouTube, Netflix, websites etc.). ISPs may complain that the increase in related data usage from these raises their costs, but that’s just the nature of the beast and should continue to be reflected in the prices we all pay as end-users.
Admittedly some content services complicate matters by using commercial peers that ISPs must then pay to access if they want to deliver the best service performance, but once again this could be simply described as a cost of doing business. Lest we forget that content providers already pay for their links to the internet, just as we pay a fee to the dedicated server company that hosts ISPreview.co.uk.
We can’t blame commercial ISPs like BT for trying to find new ways to reduce their costs (i.e. potentially helping to keep subscriber fees lower, but we doubt it would stop annual price hikes) or to secure more freedom to control traffic over their network, but so far the existing rules seem to have worked well to keep the balance fair and the internet open (as it was always intended to be). Ofcom will need to be very cautious as they move to re-examine this most contentious of areas.
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