back to article Council of Europe gets tough on net neutrality

The Council of Europe has approved and published strong net neutrality guidelines following a meeting in Strasbourg Wednesday. The guidelines are not legally binding but will almost certainly result in legislation that follows its lead being passed across Europe. The council is separate from the European Union, but it is …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let's say an operator has one IP/mpls network. They offer a business internet service, and a residential internet service (which costs less). Both services use that same IP/MPLS network.

    During normal traffic load, no congestion, subscribers of both services receive their packets with the same latencies.

    Then, during peak hours, when the network is congested, the operator cannot prioritise (schedule) the business customer. Internet traffic over residential customer. Is that correct?

    Also;if their ternet traffic arrives as the operator network, destined to a business VPN that the operator provides as a service thenis it still subject to equal.prioritisation whilst in that VPN? It's still internet traffic after all, so isit neutral to treat it any differently just because the destination is one of their business customers?

    1. frank ly

      "With the exception of traffic management, ...."

      The case you set out sounds like reasonable (and expected) 'traffic management'. Residential consumers should have been made aware that 'up to' speeds depend on network loading and may be less that the headline figure at peak times.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > Then, during peak hours, when the network is congested, the operator cannot prioritise (schedule) the business customer. Internet traffic over residential customer. Is that correct?

      Quite bloody right as well.

      Why would they when both business and "home" user have paid for their service.

      I'd be pretty miffed if my water tap pressure went to a weedy trickle at lunchtime because some soft drinks business was bottling water at full pelt.

      The proper answer is that the Internet company buys more bandwidth from the backbone during peak times and if they find that during peak usage, they don't have enough available, then they have to build out their connectivity with backbone providers.

      Just to be clear, there is no real shortage of backbone bandwidth during peak times at the moment. The issue is primarily an economic one.

      1. Rusty 1

        But what if the assumed common ISP of the business and home clients has separate contracts upstream for the different clients (for example, they are a reseller) - perhaps they use different ISPs upstream? Pretty reasonable, if you pay for a specific quality of service.

        Do you realistically expect that everyone who pays for internet connectivity gets *exactly* the same quality of service. You might well get "up to 45Mbps" - and you may well get quite a few bps less than that.

        You want a specific QoS, you pay for a leased line. Yes, that'll cost you a lot, but you'll get what you wanted.

        How many organisations do you think sit between your web browser (you bashing in "theregister.co.uk") and the page appearing? It's probably quite a few. Do you really think that all of them should provide a "fair" and "equal" service to all clients? Oh bother, there's that term "fair". Some may have paid more to be "preferred" - that's quality of service! That's commerce! It's here to stay.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          > Some may have paid more to be "preferred" - that's quality of service!

          Well different people have a different slant on what QoS actually means.

          On the one hand, different types of traffic have different delivery requirements, some require timely, yet not necessarily reliable delivery. Others require reliable delivery but are not time critical. I think that's what most people understand by the term.

          Secondly, all clients should get the service that they paid for regardless of what else is going on. Of course, that doesn't mean that if everyone tries to download Gbytes at the same time, there won't be an effect on performance, but demand is pretty predictable by and large.

          Most problems that people have with delivery has nothing to do with the availability of backhaul bandwidth, just with the amount of money that you ISP is prepared to pay for it. The big ISPs have much incentive to imply that increased demand just cannot be met, so they have to do culling of one sort or another. The reality is that they are performing an economic balancing act to maximise their profit while providing the minimum service that they think they can get away with.

          1. Yes Me Silver badge

            "different types of traffic have different delivery requirements"

            Exactly. I have yet to see a formulation of "neutrality" in any political screed that recognises this fundamental technical reality. Fortunately, this latest version is unenforceable.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "different types of traffic have different delivery requirements"

              > . I have yet to see a formulation of "neutrality" in any political screed that recognises this fundamental technical reality. Fortunately, this latest version is unenforceable.

              The neutrality debate is not about managing QoS of different types of traffic. It is about preference for the same types of traffic but from different vendors. E.g. jittering up video from YouTube but giving priority to an ISPs own OTT video service.

      2. TeeCee Gold badge
        Facepalm

        Well that's a stupid analogy!

        It works the other way. The feed to the heavy business users gets throttled when the water supply's tight, which is why your tap doesn't slow to a trickle at such times.

        Or, put another way, that analogy proves that "neutrality" would be a very bad thing in that example.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          "It works the other way. The feed to the heavy business users gets throttled when the water supply's tight, which is why your tap doesn't slow to a trickle at such times."

          Dunno about water, but heavy industrial electric users can choose to go on a cheaper tariff which has contractual agreements built in that power may be restricted or cut in times of high demand. If said industrial users wants or needs guaranteed levels/continuity of power, then they can pay for that too, at a higher tarriff.

    3. Panicnow

      Mesh not end-to-end

      The question does not reflect Internet reality. The concept that a piece of traffic can maintain its identity across multiple networks is just wrong. A Service provider can provide differing connectivity to its network, size of pipe is a good example. But as soon as its is routed it is just a packet.

      ISPs can now do "deep packet sniffing" to guess what type of traffic is being carried, the problem is some ISPs think(/have) they can extort money by choosing to alter that packets routing. E.g. introducing jitter to make streaming unpleasant.

      There is nothing to stop a network provider from delivering an end to end solution that has wonderful characteristics, Indeed specialist networks exist for superfast trading.

      Think of net neutrality as being a common minimum speed limit on motorways that ensures best flow for everyone,

    4. John Robson Silver badge

      The two services (residential and commercial) would have been sold with different traffic management policies - so that's fine.

      What I find slightly odd is that they can't now traffic manage - for instance - P2P download traffic to be of a lower priority than VoIP traffic.

      That's basic QoS management, and appears to be banned under these rules.

      I am absolutely with them that no one VoIP provider should be preferred over any other, nor should one streaming audio provider be favoured over any other, nor should any streaming video provider be favoured over any other, no HTTP(s) source.... no BT source...

      But the idea of prioritising VoIP and streaming over HTTP(s) over BT is a sane method of traffic management IMHO.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The issue is primarily an economic one."

    Which means the users will have to expect to pay more for their service. You get what you pay for. Too cheap and its rubbish - or your supplier goes bust and the last one standing can then recoup their losses in a monopoly situation.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > Which means the users will have to expect to pay more for their service.

      Perhaps, but the issue has been brought to the fore as the major suppliers of Internet connectivity (cable companies) have been finding their revenue from their traditional cash-cow cable TV dwindling.

      Without increasing charges, they really only have a few options:

      - promoting their own replacement OTT services by penalising their customer's use of competitors.

      - reducing their costs by buying less bandwidth from backbone suppliers, thus causing slowdowns during peak hours.

      The problems for the large cable companies is that they are used to being so awash with cash that they don't know how to deal with a different economic situation.

  3. Ralph Online

    Calm down! Pay attention to which organization we're dealing with!!!

    Please note that he "Council of Europe" has NOTHING to do with the European Union.

    The CoE is a body that represents 47 European Countries. It has more to do with Human Rights - and it includes the European Court of Justice. Concerned about freedom of expression - so WTF do such people know about Net Neutrality? As long as someone can access FaceBook or Reddit - with some degree of privacy/anonymity - their job is done!

    Net Neutrality, and overall digital/telco regulation, within the EU is for EU bodies to legislate on. And yes, they've been struggling with Net Neutrality legislation for the last 2-3 years. And they are more concerned about Customer protection and balancing European investments, than human rights.

    Note: the two executive EU bodies are the Council of Ministers and the Consilium, supported by the bureaucarts in the European Commission, and with the European Court of Justice being the judiciary.

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Calm down! Pay attention to which organization we're dealing with!!!

      What does it have to do with human rights?

      Quite a lot actually. If a consumer can only watch videos hosted by big corporates with deep pockets who can afford to bribe telcos to let them through, then there are freedom of speech issues.

      1. Ralph Online

        Re: Calm down! Pay attention to which organization we're dealing with!!!

        Well, OK.. I guess you are entitled to your viewpoint :-) And I hope do you know that big companies like Google/FaceBook actually support Net Neutrality because that way the telco's are not allowed to charge them for carrying traffic originating on their servers. They don't want to pay what you are calling a bribe.

        But I'm not arging for/against Net Neutrality here. And I'm certainly in favour of Human Rights.

        Just please, please don't waste your time on CoE declarations on Net Neutrality.

        Rather pay attention to the Consilium and http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/07/08-roaming-charges/ You'll see - in the EU at least - we're heading towards a "Weak" Net Neutrality. The complications are to do with what's "reasonable traffic management", and what exactly is a "specialised service".

        Oh, and BTW this stuff struggling down the EU track is framed as a "Regulation" rather than a "Directive" which means it becomes EU-wide law without having to be passed at the Member State level.

        1. Known Hero

          Re: Calm down! Pay attention to which organization we're dealing with!!!

          because that way the telco's are not allowed to charge them for carrying traffic originating on their servers.

          ???? Really ...... You do understand that these big corps need to pay to connect to the internet as well already, the data doesn't just magically appear on the internet! Why should they be charged a premium for people to access their servers? just because they are popular....

          1. jonathanb Silver badge

            Re: Calm down! Pay attention to which organization we're dealing with!!!

            YouTube don't need to pay my ISP for the data I use. That goes on my bill. Obviously they pay their own ISP to connect their servers to the internet.

  4. Internet Australia CEO

    I prefer the term "Net Equality". Net Neutrality carries too much inference from the US principle, which is a different market structure to that here in Australia.

  5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "With the exception of traffic management, network security or a court order, the council says that there should be no interference with data traffic flowing across the internet. The wording is precise, strong and unambiguous."

    So whatever chokes one service relative to another will be "traffic management". Got it. No ambiguity at all.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Internet users' right to receive and impart information should not be restricted by means of blocking, slowing down, degrading or discriminating Internet traffic associated with particular content,"

    has anyone told the FSB? Or Theresa May?

    1. Chika
      Trollface

      has anyone told the FSB? Or Theresa May?

      Probably. Whether any of them took any notice is more to the point.

  7. RegGuy1 Silver badge

    CoE -- leave them alone

    The CoE may not have much power, but the organisation is nevertheless very important. As has been pointed out net neutrality is something we should take for granted, in the same way we assume the state won't kill us because we say something wrong (are you listening Moscow? Member of the CoE).

    But what I want to know is where is Strasbourg Wednesday? Or is it a football club, a la Sheffield Wednesday?

  8. TeeCee Gold badge

    For the backbones? Yes.

    For the local distribution? Fucking insane.

    Unless, of course, your ISPs feed from your loop to the world has a capacity that is the aggregation of the maximum speeds of all the subscribers on a loop, as anything else restricts by design.

    An interesting one here is QOS. Unless the politicians have displayed some unexpected technical prowess (yeah.....right), while you could specify QOS priorities for your shit everything involved in passing the data would be obliged to ignore it and QOS becomes obsolete.

  9. caffeine addict

    It used to be common that you'd have unlimited(*ish, but not) internet after 6pm or midnight if you were a home user. This was to protect daytime traffic for business users and to encourage businesses to pay for daytime contracts.

    Using the example mentioned above, I'd expect "home" users to suffer during the day if the load was spiking. And I have no problem with that as long as it effects all traffic for all home users, or targeted all high volume transfers regardless of the data being transmitted. The problem of net neutrality isn't the idea that your ISP throttles your traffic, but that it decides to throttle traffic from Youtube because Vimeo gave them a nice backhander.

    It's like the government decided the way to ease rush hour traffic by banning lorries between 7am and 9.30am. Truckers would be pissed. But if Highways Agency then allowed Stobart trucks to ignore the law because of a fat brown envelope at Christmas...

  10. Nifty Silver badge

    At last!

    One reason for the UK to stay in the EU

  11. NightFox

    How far "down the line" will this go? Does this mean that that it'll be illegal for a hotel or hotspot provider to offer me free Internet "for browsing only" at an artificially restricted speed, but offer me the option of a faster service that will also allow VPN, VOIP and downloading for a fee?

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      They can offer different speeds as long as all traffic goes at the same speed.

  12. Charles 9

    And then there's the matter of obfuscation. How will an ISP do QoS when the bulk of traffic is encrypted and thus hard to inspect?

  13. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    WTF?

    following a meeting in Strasbourg Wednesday.

    Where's that then? Somewhere near Sheffield?

  14. Bob Dole (tm)

    QoS...

    I see several people talking about how this might destroy QoS traffic shaping. QoS was put in place because providers were oversubscribing their lines and it provided a way to delineate the traffic that had to get through now vs traffic that could take the slow boat.

    The underlying issue is over subscribed lines. As long as a provider can claim " up to 45 Mbps " without actually having the infrastructure to support that, then there's a serious problem. I see this type of legal approach an attempt to reign in marketing types who do everything they can to twist the truth.

    Ultimately I think providers need to be truthful and start selling what they can actually deliver.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: QoS...

      But they ARE selling what they can actually deliver, as an "up to" only describes a maximum, not a minimum. Anyway, minimum speed is frequently beyond their control--weak links in any given communication can come from one of the myriad links along the way, meaning minimum speed is impossible to deliver. So how are you going to deal with this kind of market where the ONLY thing you can guarantee is a maximum?

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