Barely a week after the Obama administration strongly reaffirmed its commitment to net neutrality in the US, the EU appears to be contemplating a radical step in the other direction on the same issue. Reports suggest that EU governments are looking favourably on a proposal from internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies in the EU to introduce the hitherto alien concept of a two-speed internet. Such a proposal fatally undermines the principle of net neutrality, which holds that ISPs should treat all internet content as equal.
The proposal made by the Latvian presidency of the European Council for a two-speed service might appear to have some merit on first glance. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, the chief executives of Deutsche Telekom and of Vodafone both favoured rules that would allow them to give priority to certain essential services, such as healthcare or driverless cars. Their argument is that, with the imminent development of the Internet of Things (whereby nearly all devices and services are digitally connected), it will be necessary to prioritise some services to ensure quality and safety. The evidence for their contention is not particularly compelling, however.
The Latvian proposals would reportedly permit telecoms operators to enter into agreements with companies and individuals to provide faster internet speeds, provided those agreements do not adversely affect other users' connections. This contrasts starkly with the position of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US telecoms watchdog, which has classified broadband providers as public utilities, giving itself sweeping powers that ban paid-for faster access. US telecoms groups including Verizon and AT&T have said they will try to reverse those rules.
On both sides of the Atlantic, the argument pits telecom and cable companies on one hand against internet rights advocates and Silicon Valley companies such as Google and Facebook on the other. Should a two-tier strategy be adopted by the EU, it could justifiably be argued that in Europe, unlike in the US, the public interest is trumped by corporate power. The FCC is surely correct in treating the internet as a public utility, and in opposing paid-for prioritisation. Permitting tiered access to services would also undermine a basic underlying premise of the internet, effectively handing the keys back to the telecoms companies and stymieing innovation. It would, therefore, be a bad day for the EU if the interests of powerful telecoms companies were allowed to prevail, and it is to be hoped that the Commission and Parliament, where stronger defenders of the principle of net neutrality may be found, will act on behalf of the citizens of the Union, as the federal administration has done across the Atlantic.