The EU approach to net neutrality: Network operators and over-the-top players, friends or foes?

Policy for the public without the public: Net neutrality in Israel

“…Amendment 58 in provision 51c of the Communication (Telecommunication and Broadcasting) Law (1982) dated 2014 illustrates the delicate balancing act between these interests. On the one hand, the non‐discrimination principle concerning the management of data flows, the core idea of NN (e.g., Gilroy, 2015; Kramer et al, 2013; Leal, 2014) is clearly stipulated. This serves the interests of both end‐users and small/start‐up CPs.…”

“…The latter can freely introduce their initiatives and compete with established, wealthy CPs (Ganley & Allgrove, 2006). On the other hand, the policy of non‐discrimination goes against the private interests of network owners who are not allowed to charge extra for specialized services and fast lanes; at the same time, it may be detrimental to the public interest since users cannot enjoy other options while surfing the network (Leal, 2014). Nevertheless, the balance between these contradictory interests can be seen in another light: network owners cannot charge for services and applications differently, they lose out on new sources of revenue and have less of an incentive to increase their investments in improving the network (Choi et al, 2015), which is detrimental to the public interest in the long run.…”

“…This latter cluster of definitions is usually based on two basic principles that guide the architectural design of the internet: the "end-to-end principle" (the data packets are routed through the network autonomously with no prioritization) and the "best-effort principle" (data are transmitted as fast as possible). Based on these principles, Leal (2014) argued that "at the heart of the [NN] debate is the use (and abuse) of traffic management by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which, in some cases, may be necessary to cope with peaks in traffic and to avoid network congestion…some specific practices such as throttling, or traffic prioritization may be problematic for consumers, particularly if they discriminate against certain types of services" (p. 506). Ganley and Allgrove (2006) suggested a rough division between network operators on the one hand, and a "coalition" of stakeholders consisting of content and service providers, entertainers, antiregulation advocates, and free speech groups on the other.…”

Net Neutrality and Over The Top services: a complex relationship in the telecommunications ecosystem

“…El segundo frente de batalla fue contra los ISP, especialmente aquellas empresas de telecomunicaciones que proveen servicios de telefonía (fija o móvil) y televisión por cable (Leal, 2014). Pronto los ISP debieron enfrentar un incremento del volumen de datos consumidos por los usuarios, que se conjugaba con una disminución de sus ingresos por servicios de telefonía o de televisión por cable, los cuales eran reemplazados por las OTT (Sujata et al, 2015).…”

“…Es por eso que, coincidiendo con Leal (2014), concordamos en que es necesaria una regulación de NN; pero no cualquiera sino una regulación ampliada para incluir obligaciones y pautas de acción tanto a los ISP-Telcos como a las OTT, donde el principio de no discriminación sea la clave de una normativa que contemple las particularidades de ambos casos para crear un marco justo que tenga como norte los derechos de los ciudadanos y no los intereses de las empresas en competición.…”