Sadly the EU now has a net neutrality law that only pays lip service to the principle. The loopholes are so big that you can drive a bus through them. A Stanford Law Professor sums it up:
- Fast lanes for copmanies that pay for “specialized services” exception. That can be almost anything….
- Practically full permission to offer free bandwidth for specific services. This is often done by network companies offering their flavour of a content service, creating a non-level playing field for thirs parties.
- (lower priority) traffic classes slowing down even if there is no congestion. E.g. using erratic packet delays to avoid VOIP calls to boost use of expensive voice network provider services. Also encrypted traffic and peer-2-peer will likely suffer.
There may be some opportunity to better define the loopholes. But practice is that the EU telecom companies won this one at the cost of competition and thus at the cost of the end-user.
Let’s end this one with the infamous Aldous Huxley Animal Farm quote: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.“.
Source: The European Parliament just dealt a major blow to net neutrality
