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Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Directive 2009/136/EC: Recital 34

Just to emphasise my many previous posts, what is intended with regard to EU net neutrality is actually a very 'lite' approach, ensuring services are not blocked and/or degraded beyond usefulness:
(34) A competitive market should ensure that end-users enjoy the QoS they require, but in particular cases it may be necessary to ensure that public communications networks attain minimum quality levels so as to prevent degradation of service, the blocking of access and the slowing of traffic over networks. In order to meet QoS requirements, operators may use procedures to measure and shape traffic on a network link so as to avoid filling the link to capacity or overfilling the link, which would result in network congestion and poor performance. Those procedures should be subject to scrutiny by NRAs... in particular by addressing discriminatory behaviour, in order to ensure that they do not restrict competition. If appropriate, NRAs may also impose minimum QoS requirements on undertakings to ensure that services and applications dependent on the network are delivered at a minimum quality standard, subject to examination by the Commission. NRAs should be empowered to take action to address degradation of service, including the hindering or slowing down of traffic, to the detriment of consumers. However, since inconsistent remedies can impair the functioning of the internal market, the Commission should assess any requirements intended to be set by NRAs for possible regulatory intervention across the Community and, if necessary, issue comments or recommendations in order to achieve consistent application.

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