Net Neutrality Collision Course: U.S. and Europe?Net Neutrality Collision Course: U.S. and Europe?

The international enterprise will have to have several plans to accommodate the multiple definitions of Net Neutrality that will probably exist worldwide.

Net Neutrality in Europe keeps moving on while in the U.S. we seem to be stagnant. What if the European Union has a different set of Net Neutrality rules and they don't match ours? How do enterprises deal with the differences? Can a domestic ISP and the enterprise be penalized or end up in a European court but operate legally in the U.S.?

The European rules are not yet completed. The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) is holding a public consultation (gathering comments) on draft Guidelines on Net Neutrality and Transparency which were issued on October 3. This 64-page set of guidelines discusses the growth of broadband services and the potential for offering multiple levels of Quality of Service by ISPs. Stakeholders are invited to send their answers by the 2nd of November 2011 to [email protected].

The guidelines:

* Define the information that should be submitted including the service scope such as speeds, limitations for usage such as data caps and other limitations including traffic management practices

* Specify who should provide the requested information and the framework requirements placed upon ISPs and third party providers

* Are designed to ensure the compatibility of the information provided so that there is a common frame of reference for the potential users to understand the offerings

The responses for this consultation will be posted at the BEREC Public Consultation site.

BEREC will publish a report that establishes minimum QoS requirements in 2Q 2012 and how to introduce such requirements. BEREC is conducting an economic analysis of the impact on the market including consumer protection and welfare, innovations and competition. BEREC is also interested in service discrimination practices and provider interoperability issues.

Will the FCC be able to create a U.S. environment that will match or at least complement the European effort? That is where the problems will exist for the enterprise. The FCC has to deal with Congress and the Senate where there are already opponents to the initial FCC ideas of Net Neutrality.

I think there should be national standards for QoS, traffic management, service limitations.... I would not advocate any FCC mandates on service pricing. I don't want to see multiple competing service plans that are all different in scope such as the data plans for mobile devices. Interoperating across multiple ISPs with different non-standard offerings would be a headache for the ISP and enterprise. The user would see inconsistent content delivery.

This is an issue of FCC jurisdiction. Will the providers lobby successfully to limit the FCC’ influence? I don't think Congress is up to the task of dealing with the technical and service offering issues, only with dealing with the lobbyists' positions. We see so many distorted public positions that will produce many political discussions over the technical issues of Net Neutrally. Many providers want to weaken the FCC so they can dominate and effectively not be responsible to the public at large.

I wish I knew how the enterprise could plan for the next generation of ISP network services. The international enterprise will have to have several plans to accommodate the multiple definitions of Net Neutrality that will probably exist worldwide. Another enterprise question is how will other countries such as China, India and those in the Middle East embrace Net Neutrality where content delivery may be blocked.