The EU Voted to Save Net Neutrality

The EU Parliament just voted on some key telecoms measures, including a strict stance on maintaining net neutrality—which puts it at odds with recent happenings in the US.

The EU’s vote set out that all internet traffic should be treated equally—i.e. that internet service providers can’t play favourites and give different users different access. That’s the opposite to a US court ruling in January, which decided that the Federal Communication Commission couldn’t tell internet service providers to treat all traffic equally.

The net neutrality rules were passed with a bunch of other telecoms law reforms, and were added in as amendments to close up loopholes in the package that could have threatened net neutrality. As the amendments set out, “The principle of ‘net neutrality’ means that traffic should be treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, independent of the sender, receiver, type, content, device, service or application.”

The initial proposal laid out the opportunity for users to “conclude agreements on the provision of specialised services with an enhanced quality of service with providers”—something that sounds like it could have threatened neutrality—but an amendment added that “traffic management measures should not discriminate between competing services and applications.”

The law now just has to be approved by the European Council, which Reuters reports is expected in October.

The idea is that some specialised services may feasibly have special requirements for technical reasons, but those shouldn’t be granted to the detriment of any other web services. Providers can’t just decide that a service is specialised because they’ve made a deal with them, then prioritise it over other competing services and screw up the whole way the web works.

Some argue this stands in contrast to what's happening in the US with Netflix and Comcast, in which Netflix struck a deal with Comcast to cut out a network middleman​. Netflix CEO has since slammed the deal, calling it an "arbitrary tax."

The new rules didn't come without contention. (David Meyer at GigaOm has a good low-down on some of the details of the debate.) In an official statement, vice president of the European Commission Neelie Kroes said, “This vote is the EU delivering for citizens. This is what the EU is all about—getting rid of barriers to make life easier and less expensive.”

Couldn't be happier!! Great result in EU Parl in favour of #ConnectedContinent !! #roaming #netneutrality

— Neelie Kroes (@NeelieKroesEU) April 3, 2014

In fact, for many people the main focus of the vote wasn’t on net neutrality but mobile roaming charges. The Parliament voted to end roaming fees, to stop people being charged over the odds for travelling between European countries. In February, an EU survey found that a quarter of Europeans simply turn their phones off when travelling within Europe to avoid getting hit by unexpectedly high bills, with nearly half never using mobile internet abroad.

It’s a costly barrier to frequent travellers, and businesses working between member states, and users will no doubt be rejoicing at the outcome of the vote. I personally can’t wait to actually be able to use Google Maps when trying to meet up with friends on the continent.