Mobile net neutrality: some thoughts

As Neelie Kroes explains that roaming competition has proved a total failure, and that retail price regulation may be the only medium-term solution, its worth contemplating the nature of what she describes as no " justification for the current rip-offs". That issue is intimately entangled with the usage-based billing controversy I have previously described. An interesting tweet from Tomoaki Watanabe at GLOCOM (where I am a Fellow) describes how a 30 GIGABYTE UPLOAD limit PER DAY is now being imposed in Japan...good grief, Europe is behind on fibre, as another Kroes' speech gently suggests.
As Neelie points out, things have improved and now its just "less than 5 cents for downloading a MB of data at home, but this may turn into 2.60 Euro per MB when the same consumer crosses an invisible border!" In fact, I pay £7.68 for 5GB at home, which is just 1.5cents. But roaming - well, just don't switch your phone on...
So back to that 1.5cents per day - with 5GB ceiling - and I must at this point explain that as a constant complainer and researcher, i think I have the best deal available in Europe.
Well, Europe is lagging hopelessly behind competitors on mobile, with Symbian and Ericsson's near-deaths and Nokia's perhaps terminal nosedive on smartphones, we may be commoditised according to Mobile Megatrends (thanks to Gunnar Bender for the link). Neelie rather wonderfully described it as phones from the Far East and content from the Far West squeezing old Europe.
Europe is all dongled up as far as it will go, and we are now getting Smartphoned to match the more civilized parts of the world - and notably smartphones now ship more than computers - and cost more. Allegedly and ludicrously, market research claims we want to pay more for real broadband speeds. That would make mobile unique amongst IT products, it appears tenuous, even Mubarak-like to even say such a thing.
Mobile has tried to keep inside its little bubble in Europe, but Nokia's CEO has popped that complacency, smartphones have shattered it, and we are living in a new world - consumers expect convergence to produce faster speeds, lower prices and Moore's Law improvements in handsets. We make low-end handsets, outmoded OS, ludicrous roaming charges and expensive low-speed mobile networks. The emperor's clothes are translucent at best.

Openness: radical new agenda by Neelie Kroes

Neelie Kroes has set out a really quite radical agenda to ensure interoperability in European ICT procurement and regulation, drawing on her experiences in regulating Microsoft and the procedural frustrations she felt in that case. in Speech 10/300 Address at Open Forum Europe 2010 Summit: 'Openness at the heart of the EU Digital Agenda' Brussels, 10th June 2010 she sets out a five-part agenda:

1. New stand-setting framework at end-2010: “In Europe only ETSI allows these actors to directly participate in the making of standards. One negative result is that the standards underpinning the emerging universal communication platform: the internet and the world wide web - including standards for content formats - are made elsewhere. This puts these standards, many of which are truly open - that is to say they do not come with any constraints for implementers - at a disadvantage vis-à-vis European standards when in legislation or public procurement...[Solving] This could be done via a fast-track approval of their standards through a process hosted by a traditional European standards body such as ETSI, or through the assessment of these bodies' compliance with certain criteria regarding notably openness, consensus, balance and transparency.”

2. “let's face it, establishing FRAND (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) prices is a hard task over which reasonable people often disagree. Transparency is therefore in everyone's interest - the alternatives are not... The Commission has already taken an important step by drafting new guidelines on the application of the Treaty's antitrust rules to horizontal agreements... The draft, which is currently available for public comment, relies on the well-established concepts of non-discrimination, transparency and availability and specifies minimum requirements that distinguish standard-setting from a cartel.”“when the Commission mandates standards bodies to draw up a standard it should have the right to be more demanding on the standardisation process, to ensure that standards are less demanding when it comes to their adoption. We could also think about enticing other standards bodies to adopt such rules, for example by giving their outputs preferential treatment when approving them as European standards. Finally, why not tie the public financing of standards bodies to the existence of good ex-ante rules?”

“We don’t want uniform rules everywhere... Standard-setting for software interoperability is not the same as setting a new standard for, say, digital television or mobile telephony. We should have the right rules in the right contexts...I am convinced that a more visible role for fora and consortia standardisation in Europe will already lead to many improvements here.”

3. “we will draw up detailed guidance on how to analyse a technology buyer's requirements in order to make best use of ICT standards in tender specifications. This is a complex exercise... Many authorities have found themselves unintentionally locked into proprietary technology for decades.” She means lazy procurement or to be more polite, 'inertia sets in'. Or corruption, of course.

4. “I want to put in place a new European Interoperability Framework. This second version of the EIF is foreseen to be adopted at the level of the College of Commissioners, and will therefore rightly be perceived as of a higher status and importance than EIF version 1. Both the Framework and an Interoperability Strategy paper are foreseen for 2010.” It contains a ‘comply or explain’ requirement when governments do not adopt an available open standard, as already applies in the Netherlands.

Most radically: 5. “with my colleagues in the College I will seriously explore all options to ensure that significant market players cannot just choose to deny interoperability with their product. You no doubt remember that I have some experience with reticent high-tech companies: I had to fight hard and for several years until Microsoft began to license missing interoperability information. Complex anti-trust investigations followed by court proceedings are perhaps not the only way to increase interoperability. The Commission should not need to run an epic antitrust case every time software lacks interoperability. Wouldn't it be nice to solve all such problems in one go?... I am looking for a way to ensure companies offer the required information for licensing... Whereas in ex-post investigations we have all sorts of case-specific evidence and economic analysis on which to base our decisions, we are forced to look at more general data and arguments when assessing the impact of ex-ante legislation. Just to be clear, while it is still early days, it is certainly possible that I will go for a legislative proposal.”

This is radical stuff and may take years but is worth the effort!

2015.eu - European Parliament calls on Neelie to implement net neutrality and Charter of Digital Rights

In a very wide-ranging policy proposal based on the input of several committees, the Parliament has on 5 May adopted a humdinger of a Resolution P7_TA-PROV(2010)0133 on Kroes' Digital Agenda for Europe: the Commissioner has welcomed the Resolution. These are salient parts:

27. Emphasises that all EU citizens should be made aware of their basic digital rights and obligations through a European Charter of citizens’ and consumers’ rights in the digital environment; believes that this Charter should consolidate the Community acquis including, in particular, users’ rights relating to the protection of privacy, vulnerable users and digital content as well as guaranteeing adequate interoperability performance; reaffirms that rights in the digital environment should be considered within the overall framework of fundamental rights;

28. Believes firmly that the protection of privacy constitutes a core value and that all users should have control of their personal data, including the ‘right to be forgotten’; urges the Commission to take account not only of data protection and privacy questions as such, but especially of the specific needs of minors and young adults with respect to these questions; calls on the Commission to submit a proposal for the adaptation of the Data Protection Directive to the current digital environment;

31. Insists on safeguarding an open Internet, where citizens have the right and business users are able to access and distribute information or run applications and services of their choice as provided for by the new regulatory framework; calls on the Commission, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) to promote the ‘net neutrality’ provisions, to monitor its implementation closely and to report to the European Parliament before the end of 2010; considers that EU legislation should preserve the ‘mere conduit’ provision established in the e-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC) as a crucial way of enabling free and open competition on the digital market;

A tale of two Easter week conferences: EuroCPR v. BILETA

I will be in Vienna on 28-30 March for the 25th BILETA (British and Irish Law Education and Technology Association, but quite Euro for the first time) conference - speaking about mobile net neutrality. The conference reflects its lawyerly base and legendary social programme.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, a more tightly focussed discussion of broadband policy takes place at EuroCPR. It has Milton Mueller, Nico van Eijk and Yochai Benkler speaking - really impressive line-up, and I wish I could be in two places at once.
That said, its quite an economics-dominated event, but nowhere near as much as the even more regulator-heavy WIK conference in Berlin 27 April - at which Neelie Kroes is invited to make one of her first big speeches as Commissioner. Sharon Gillett will be there as well as several Caves - which means it will be more than just a regulator love-in.
Maybe a shout-out is also needed early for McGill's Prof. Becky Lentz hosting the 3rd annual GIGANET workshop. I will most definitely be there.