6 ms·

As always, devil is in the details. If you look at the fine print in the published "Guidelines for implementing Net Neutratily" [1] linked in the article you w

by soci 10y ago

As always, devil is in the details. If you look at the fine print in the published "Guidelines for implementing Net Neutratily" [1] linked in the article you will see that there are 3 exceptions to the rule (a,b,c). Being "c" the one that should fear us most: EXCEPTIONS a) "comply with Union legislative acts (...) -> meaning that a court order can change Net Neutrality, hmmm ok. b) preserve the integrity and security of the network, of services provided via that network, and of the terminal equipment of end-users; -> meaning that in order to guarantee the security of the network Net Neutrality may be avoided. I'm so-so on this one. c) prevent impending network congestion and mitigate the effects of exceptional or temporary network congestion, provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally. -> Meaning that ISPs can throttle specific categories of traffic at their own will. This last one ruins the whole law. And this is not what me as European wanted. ISPs won :( [1] http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/download/0/6160-berec-guidelines-on-the-implementation-b_0.pdf http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/... [EDIT] typos

reitanqild 10y ago
IMO, IANAL > -> meaning that a court order can change Net Neutrality, hmmm ok. It would be weird for a court to order anyone to break net neutrality. > -> meaning that in order to guarantee the security of the network Net Neutrality may be avoided. I'm so-so on this one. The intention here seems to be to allow (D)DOS attack mitigation etc. > -> Meaning that ISPs can throttle specific categories of traffic at their own will. Note that the law is very clear that this only is allowed "provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally."
- komali2 10y ago
  "Comcast video streaming service is not in the same category as Netflix, Hulu because...." Back to square 1.
  - WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
    Nope; that would simply be challenged in court.
    - Spivak 10y ago
      However, choosing to throttle video content in general to promote their cable service would probably be allowed under this ruling. I don't know if that possibility is serious enough to worry about though.
      - WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
        I wonder even about that, given that it's stated that it can be done only under exceptional and temporary conditions of congestion. The regulator should probably act if it were the general practice instead. But yeah, the public will need to stay vigilant over how national regulators implement this ruling case by case.
        calgoo 10y ago
        From my understanding it looks more like: "We are streaming the Olympics and its transferring 2TB/s of data, we need to route this differently!". But then again, loopholes are loopholes, and it will be just a matter of time until it will be abused.
        WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
        Sry, could you clarify, what looks more like rerouting a large download?? Anyhow, allowing traffic shaping in congestion control is not a network neutrality loophole in itself, but ofc any regulation depends on the regulator.
    - lugg 10y ago
      Really, who is going to challenge the difference between Netflix and torrents. Both video. Both serve the end user in the same way. But nobody will challenge it because nobody is in charge of torrents. This kills neutrality completely. There is no way those ruling over this know where to draw the category lines properly.
- soci 10y ago
  > Note that the law is very clear that this only is allowed "provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally." They can, for instance, slow down P2P traffic. What do you think about that?
  - WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
    comcast could in the US, and won in court. Despite US regulation being seen as quite robust. By this text, they'd need to show it was an exceptional and temporary necessity to deal with congestion.
    - rhino369 10y ago
      If you are talking about the case from 5ish years ago, that was because the court struck down the entire basis for net neutrality. The net neutrality rules themselves didn't allow for blocking p2p.
      - WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
        yeah, that's the case. Could you clarify? I'm just seeing old articles claiming the last court verdict on the matter was that the FCC overstepped its authority in that particular case? Did some case or law change this? But yeah, hard to see how discriminating a particular protocol w/o cause could be network neutral.
        rhino369 10y ago
        Sure. There was a new FCC ruling that based it's decision on a much more legally sound law. The FCC is allowed to regulate telecommunication services strictly. Right now it takes a sort of a hands off approach, but they have broad authority to make rules. Before 2015, the FCC considered ISPs to be "information services" instead of "telecommunication services." So the first time the FCC proposed net neutrality rules, it tried to apply them under the "information services" framework. The Court in 2010 (I think) found that the FCC didn't have the power to regulate "information services" so harshly. So the court canceled their net neutrality rules. So last year the FCC reclassified ISPs as telecommunication services. Since they are allowed to harshly regulate those services, it's considered very likely to upheld by the court this time. The only chance it gets struck down is if the court thinks the FCC was clearly wrong about ISPs being a telecommunication service. But the law is pretty clear that are. But I think some ISPs are still fighting it.
WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
A legislative act is not an act of the court - that'd be a judicial act - but of the parliament ie a law; that's the legislative body. Ofc a regulation needs to comply with laws; how else is a legal state supposed to work? And afaik traffic shaping done in a content-neutral way is network neutral; for it favors no particular provider. "Provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally" is quite limiting.
- IMRelentless1 10y ago
  any thoughts on Obama handing over the DNS directory to the UN on Oct. 1st?
- IMRelentless1 10y ago
  any thoughts on Obama handing over the DNS directory to the UN on Oct. 1st?
a_thro_away 10y ago
I don't think "of exceptional or temporary network congestion..." means "at will". Recital 15, attached to the article 3(3)c, goes to great length defining what exceptional means, that such traffic may be managed, temporarily, only if it was unpredictable, unavoidable, and short duration, or it damages network reactivity. It clearly states that such management is not a replacement for upgrading bandwidth, both mobile and fixed. And even then they cannot prejudice specific traffic, just an entire class of it, again, only temporarily.
- daveloyall 10y ago
  Yes, this! The recitals are awesome! I wish USAmerica would use this type of exposition in their legalese. Hm, this is all I found so far about the practice: https://web.archive.org/web/20130622043635/http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/techleg/10.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20130622043635/http://eur-lex.eu...
daveloyall 10y ago
Here is some more text, from directly below what you pasted. Recital 15 ========== Third, measures going beyond such reasonable traffic management measures might also be necessary to prevent impending network congestion, that is, situations where congestion is about to materialise, and to mitigate the effects of network congestion, where such congestion occurs only temporarily or in exceptional circumstances. The principle of proportionality requires that traffic management measures based on that exception treat equivalent categories of traffic equally. Temporary congestion should be understood as referring to specific situations of short duration, where a sudden increase in the number of users in addition to the regular users, or a sudden increase in demand for specific content, applications or services, may overflow the transmission capacity of some elements of the network and make the rest of the network less reactive. Temporary congestion might occur especially in mobile networks, which are subject to more variable conditions, such as physical obstructions, lower indoor coverage, or a variable number of active users with changing location. While it may be predictable that such temporary congestion might occur from time to time at certain points in the network – such that it cannot be regarded as exceptional – it might not recur so often or for such extensive periods that a capacity expansion would be economically justified. Exceptional congestion should be understood as referring to unpredictable and unavoidable situations of congestion, both in mobile and fixed networks. Possible causes of those situations include a technical failure such as a service outage due to broken cables or other infrastructure elements, unexpected changes in routing of traffic or large increases in network traffic due to emergency or other situations beyond the control of providers of internet access services. Such congestion problems are likely to be infrequent but may be severe, and are not necessarily of short duration. The need to apply traffic management measures going beyond the reasonable traffic management measures in order to prevent or mitigate the effects of temporary or exceptional network congestion should not give providers of internet access services the possibility to circumvent the general prohibition on blocking, slowing down, altering, restricting, interfering with, degrading or discriminating between specific content, applications or services, or specific categories thereof. Recurrent and more long-lasting network congestion which is neither exceptional nor temporary should not benefit from that exception but should rather be tackled through expansion of network capacity.
RGamma 10y ago
Congestion control and QoS are crucial parts necessary for network reliability and the functioning of low latency services though. How would one even formulate a law that doesn't have loopholes w.r.t. to those?
- nordify 10y ago
  Core networks do not use QoS or congestion control in the traditional sense, as they are designed to be run without congestion in normal circumstances and because QoS is too expensive compared to adding more capacity.

by soci 10y ago

reitanqild 10y ago

IMO, IANAL > -> meaning that a court order can change Net Neutrality, hmmm ok. It would be weird for a court to order anyone to break net neutrality. > -> meaning that in order to guarantee the security of the network Net Neutrality may be avoided. I'm so-so on this one. The intention here seems to be to allow (D)DOS attack mitigation etc. > -> Meaning that ISPs can throttle specific categories of traffic at their own will. Note that the law is very clear that this only is allowed "provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally."

komali2 10y ago
"Comcast video streaming service is not in the same category as Netflix, Hulu because...." Back to square 1.
- WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
  Nope; that would simply be challenged in court.
  - Spivak 10y ago
    However, choosing to throttle video content in general to promote their cable service would probably be allowed under this ruling. I don't know if that possibility is serious enough to worry about though.
    - WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
      I wonder even about that, given that it's stated that it can be done only under exceptional and temporary conditions of congestion. The regulator should probably act if it were the general practice instead. But yeah, the public will need to stay vigilant over how national regulators implement this ruling case by case.
      - calgoo 10y ago
        From my understanding it looks more like: "We are streaming the Olympics and its transferring 2TB/s of data, we need to route this differently!". But then again, loopholes are loopholes, and it will be just a matter of time until it will be abused.
        WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
        Sry, could you clarify, what looks more like rerouting a large download?? Anyhow, allowing traffic shaping in congestion control is not a network neutrality loophole in itself, but ofc any regulation depends on the regulator.
  - lugg 10y ago
    Really, who is going to challenge the difference between Netflix and torrents. Both video. Both serve the end user in the same way. But nobody will challenge it because nobody is in charge of torrents. This kills neutrality completely. There is no way those ruling over this know where to draw the category lines properly.
soci 10y ago
> Note that the law is very clear that this only is allowed "provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally." They can, for instance, slow down P2P traffic. What do you think about that?
- WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
  comcast could in the US, and won in court. Despite US regulation being seen as quite robust. By this text, they'd need to show it was an exceptional and temporary necessity to deal with congestion.
  - rhino369 10y ago
    If you are talking about the case from 5ish years ago, that was because the court struck down the entire basis for net neutrality. The net neutrality rules themselves didn't allow for blocking p2p.
    - WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
      yeah, that's the case. Could you clarify? I'm just seeing old articles claiming the last court verdict on the matter was that the FCC overstepped its authority in that particular case? Did some case or law change this? But yeah, hard to see how discriminating a particular protocol w/o cause could be network neutral.
      - rhino369 10y ago
        Sure. There was a new FCC ruling that based it's decision on a much more legally sound law. The FCC is allowed to regulate telecommunication services strictly. Right now it takes a sort of a hands off approach, but they have broad authority to make rules. Before 2015, the FCC considered ISPs to be "information services" instead of "telecommunication services." So the first time the FCC proposed net neutrality rules, it tried to apply them under the "information services" framework. The Court in 2010 (I think) found that the FCC didn't have the power to regulate "information services" so harshly. So the court canceled their net neutrality rules. So last year the FCC reclassified ISPs as telecommunication services. Since they are allowed to harshly regulate those services, it's considered very likely to upheld by the court this time. The only chance it gets struck down is if the court thinks the FCC was clearly wrong about ISPs being a telecommunication service. But the law is pretty clear that are. But I think some ISPs are still fighting it.

WilliamDhalgren 10y ago

A legislative act is not an act of the court - that'd be a judicial act - but of the parliament ie a law; that's the legislative body. Ofc a regulation needs to comply with laws; how else is a legal state supposed to work? And afaik traffic shaping done in a content-neutral way is network neutral; for it favors no particular provider. "Provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally" is quite limiting.

IMRelentless1 10y ago
any thoughts on Obama handing over the DNS directory to the UN on Oct. 1st?
IMRelentless1 10y ago
any thoughts on Obama handing over the DNS directory to the UN on Oct. 1st?

a_thro_away 10y ago

I don't think "of exceptional or temporary network congestion..." means "at will". Recital 15, attached to the article 3(3)c, goes to great length defining what exceptional means, that such traffic may be managed, temporarily, only if it was unpredictable, unavoidable, and short duration, or it damages network reactivity. It clearly states that such management is not a replacement for upgrading bandwidth, both mobile and fixed. And even then they cannot prejudice specific traffic, just an entire class of it, again, only temporarily.

daveloyall 10y ago
Yes, this! The recitals are awesome! I wish USAmerica would use this type of exposition in their legalese. Hm, this is all I found so far about the practice: https://web.archive.org/web/20130622043635/http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/techleg/10.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20130622043635/http://eur-lex.eu...

daveloyall 10y ago

Here is some more text, from directly below what you pasted. Recital 15 ========== Third, measures going beyond such reasonable traffic management measures might also be necessary to prevent impending network congestion, that is, situations where congestion is about to materialise, and to mitigate the effects of network congestion, where such congestion occurs only temporarily or in exceptional circumstances. The principle of proportionality requires that traffic management measures based on that exception treat equivalent categories of traffic equally. Temporary congestion should be understood as referring to specific situations of short duration, where a sudden increase in the number of users in addition to the regular users, or a sudden increase in demand for specific content, applications or services, may overflow the transmission capacity of some elements of the network and make the rest of the network less reactive. Temporary congestion might occur especially in mobile networks, which are subject to more variable conditions, such as physical obstructions, lower indoor coverage, or a variable number of active users with changing location. While it may be predictable that such temporary congestion might occur from time to time at certain points in the network – such that it cannot be regarded as exceptional – it might not recur so often or for such extensive periods that a capacity expansion would be economically justified. Exceptional congestion should be understood as referring to unpredictable and unavoidable situations of congestion, both in mobile and fixed networks. Possible causes of those situations include a technical failure such as a service outage due to broken cables or other infrastructure elements, unexpected changes in routing of traffic or large increases in network traffic due to emergency or other situations beyond the control of providers of internet access services. Such congestion problems are likely to be infrequent but may be severe, and are not necessarily of short duration. The need to apply traffic management measures going beyond the reasonable traffic management measures in order to prevent or mitigate the effects of temporary or exceptional network congestion should not give providers of internet access services the possibility to circumvent the general prohibition on blocking, slowing down, altering, restricting, interfering with, degrading or discriminating between specific content, applications or services, or specific categories thereof. Recurrent and more long-lasting network congestion which is neither exceptional nor temporary should not benefit from that exception but should rather be tackled through expansion of network capacity.

RGamma 10y ago

Congestion control and QoS are crucial parts necessary for network reliability and the functioning of low latency services though. How would one even formulate a law that doesn't have loopholes w.r.t. to those?

nordify 10y ago
Core networks do not use QoS or congestion control in the traditional sense, as they are designed to be run without congestion in normal circumstances and because QoS is too expensive compared to adding more capacity.