Netherlands first country in Europe with net neutrality

https://www.bof.nl/2012/05/08/netherlands-first-country-in-europe-with-net-neutrality/

by slasaus • 14 years ago

310 57 14 years ago

benwerd3• 14 years ago

I'm proud of them, but the Internet is international - without broad acceptance, we run the risk of effectively having distinct National Internets with different rules and regulations. That scares me a bit, because the potential is still to have unhindered communications between anyone, anywhere.

Net neutrality should be built into the fabric of the Internet through better technology - legislation clearly isn't working.

wladimir• 14 years ago

Still, it is useful if at least one country legislates it. It means that organizations that rely on net neutrality, or strive to achieve net neutrality through technological means, could move to that country and do their work unhindered. No bullying ISPs etc...

Roritharr• 14 years ago

Another reason why Appsterdam rocks!

bad_user3• 14 years ago

There are already "national Internets". This is just the nature of the beast, the Internet being mostly decentralized.

And btw, when it comes to net neutrality, I don't think it's such a good idea, because I'm a firm believer in a free market and government regulations only hinder competition.

Net neutrality may be a solution in the U.S. where monopolies are a bigger issue and where you don't have much choice in regards to your net provider depending on location, but in Europe the competition is pretty tough.

For instance people criticized the net neutrality proposal pushed by Google because it exempts mobile providers, however in my country there are 3 major carriers (plus a couple of smaller ones), each of them with mostly the same network coverage, each of them with 3G data plans, each of them operating on the same standards and compatible frequencies. Also under our law, you can always interrupt a contract, the only penalty being that you have to give back the subsidized amount for the remaining period (e.g. the price of the phone minus the initial price, divided by 24 and multiplied by the number of remaining months), but if you have a contract with no subsidy, there are no penalties involved. And since you can also move your number from one carrier to another, there is absolutely no lock-in effect, other than the bureaucracy involved. Also, for locked phones, the carrier must unlock it for free once the subsidy is paid.

The competition is pretty though, and the PrePay plans here would make you jealous ;-) And in my area I also have not less than 3 major broadband providers which are national, so the same arguments hold for landlines.

In this light, in the context of cut-throat competition, yet another government regulation simply does not make sense.

benwerd3• 14 years ago

This is getting off-topic for Hacker News, but you need some legislation to maintain the parameters of a free market. Net neutrality is the fair basis of an online market.

sjaakkkkk2• 14 years ago

I wouldn't say the competition is very tough in the Netherlands, as there are also only a few large players (each with multiple brands/subsidiaries under them). Furthermore, a couple months ago, the dutch FTC put major telecom providers under review for making alleged cartel price agreements.

On a higher level, I am certainly for a free market, but don't dismiss government regulations purely because they can 'only hinder competition'. That is a very dogmatic statement as regulations aren't always 'bad'/hindering competition. No personal offense intended, but I always find the strength of belief in a purely free market for some people to be almost the same as how other people believe in religion, very idealistic and extreme. There are a lot of subtleties and nuances to free markets. Also, is pursuing a free market a goal in itself, or a means to an end in creating a 'good society'. In the latter case, other advantages of certain regulations should be considered as well.

Lastly, regarding the issue at hand, next to economical arguments, I think a large part of getting this regulation has comes from other motivations such as valuing equality and accessibility for all etc.

tjoff• 14 years ago

I don't think it's such a good idea, because I'm a firm believer in a free market and government regulations only hinder competition. [...] Also under our law, you can always interrupt a contract, the only penalty being that you have to give back the subsidized amount for the remaining period

So much for believing in a free market...

Also you can not really expect ordinary people to care about stuff like this. They will gladly pay more for getting rid of net neutrality only realizing their mistake when it is too late.

yungchin• 14 years ago

Telecoms are such a highly regulated market already (just to start with, you have to have paid a few hundred million for a bit of spectrum, if there's some available at all), that I don't see this extra regulation breaking it even more.

On the other hand, it's an essential bit of regulation to ensure that the market for services running over those networks works more like a free market. That is, I think you should favour this one ;)

sigil4• 14 years ago

Net neutrality may be a solution in the U.S. where monopolies are a bigger issue and where you don't have much choice in regards to your net provider depending on location.

Actually, 98% of US zipcodes have 2+ broadband providers, and 88% of US zipcodes have 4+ broadband providers. This is from the FCC's own data and excludes 4G providers, which are popping up like crazy (I'm posting this via a Clear mifi device for example).

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-292191...

MrJagil• 14 years ago

"Net neutrality should be built into the fabric of the Internet through better technology - legislation clearly isn't working."

There was a lot of coverage about some kind of mesh network being developed in response to SOPA (reddit related?). Is it still going strong?

rmc2• 14 years ago

You might be thinking of this http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/ . I don't think it's ever gotten off the ground and is still people talking about it online.

septnuits• 14 years ago

This is great step towards a global untapped internet where people can have their freedom of speech without the need of fear of being spied upon. I hope more countries follows this example; The Netherlands proves once again that they are one step ahead in integrity-politics.

SjuulJanssen2• 14 years ago

bof(fen) wij toch ff :)

tripzilch• 14 years ago

Yeah but what has BOF really been doing lately?

They're just reporting this, it's not like we have them to thank for it.

And in the mean time BREIN manages to sue Dutch ISPs into blackholing TPB.

I really wonder whether my monthly donation is doing much good. I'll keep donating, but it'd be nice to see some (recent) successes.

spurgu• 14 years ago

My VPS located in Netherlands just got more valuable!

gench• 14 years ago

That is something. I wonder if there is a similar law to protect my Internet privacy from my boss in the Netherlands.

digitalengineer2• 14 years ago

Your "internet privacy" is protected just fine as long as you don't use the company's network, e-mail, and laptop. And as long as you don't go sharing all your things to everybody (twitter, f-book).

_delirium• 14 years ago

In a number of countries, companies don't have full rights to snoop on employees' network communications, even at work. In Denmark, I believe email is considered quasi-private. A boss can read an employee's mail, but must go through a process where the reason they need to do so is formally documented.

The situation is not entirely clear even in the US: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125859862658454923.html

generateui• 14 years ago

After it became apparent by parlement representitives they probably had to pay "chatheffing" - chattax, this law was reality quite fast.

It's pretty hopefull the law passed senate unanimously.

phatbyte2• 14 years ago

I just love European nordic countries, their mentality is like 30 years ahead of rest of the world. Plus they have awesome metal bands.

JCB_K• 14 years ago

That's great, but let's get back on the topic of West-European countries, shall we? The Netherlands isn't Nordic by any stretch. Nor do they have awesome metal bands by the way.

phatbyte2• 14 years ago

My bad, I meant north european countries. But regarding the metal bands I still stick with the nordic countries like sweden and finland ;)

rmc2• 14 years ago

Netherlands isn't a nordic country.

SjuulJanssen2• 14 years ago

Yup and the Netherlands used to be ahead on some topic but it looks like we're going backwards atm. Referring to Wietpas and Brein-vs-piratebay

smutticus• 14 years ago

Then why is BREIN allowed to force Ziggo to block access to TPB?

I'm glad Dutch ISPs are not allowed to throttle my traffic to specific websites. But apparently blackholing it is still allowed.

pgeorgi• 14 years ago

Blackholing because the ISP made a contract with BREIN to do so is probably a net neutrality violation.

Blackholing because a judge ordered to is not. When disagreeing with the judge, give him better guidelines to work with (ie. change the law)

speleding2• 14 years ago

It's interesting to note that this legislation was prompted because the incumbent telco (KPN) overplayed its hand. They publicly suggested that they would price traffic from WhatsApp higher to offset their loss in SMS revenue. A public outcry ensued, law makers got involved and this is the result.

Democracy doesn't always work, but when it does it's a beautiful thing.

bonjourmr• 14 years ago

Not sure how long telcos thought they could get away with charging so much for SMS (http://www.nickloper.com/2011/02/how-much-does-a-text-messag...) but now that things have changed it looks as though they thought they had other ways of making incredible profits from message transmission. Ha!

stingraycharles• 14 years ago

The problem is, the money still has to come from somewhere. When income drops in one area (SMS), and costs do not go down, they'll likely have to increase pricing in another area.

woodpanel2• 14 years ago

I've always struggled a bit with the concept of net neutrality. Leigislation should improve/secure freedom of choice. If it is about keeping providers from throttling traffic based on the traffic-source ( = prohibition of choices) I'm all for it.

But what about my freedom to choose a slower connection? Or one without video chat capacities? I propably would be ok with paying half the price if my traffic has not the highest priority.

When I had less income, an internet connection might have been more affordable if I wasn't forced to buy traffic capacities I didn't need. I have a couple of friends who still struggle to afford internet (sadly, the more time passes without internet access, the harder it'll get for them to ever improve on their income).

Does the "net neutrality" concept differentiate between "intent of usage" and "interest of usage"? The first to me seems more important to be kept neutral.

(What I mean by the latter might be better expalined with the 19th century rail-pricing systems where you had 1st, 2nd and 3rd class passengers. 3rd class was dirty, packed and propably pathoenic. But more importantly, the "3rd class" could afford the ride. )

KoulMomo2• 14 years ago

My understanding, and what I mean by Net Neutrality is that ISPs should treat packets that I access equally. This does not prevent ISPs from providing tiered services or instituting network caps.

For example, if I get a plan that promises: 1) 5 mbs download 2) 1 mbs upload 3) 15 GB usage cap

The ISP is well within it's rights to provide me with such a slow connection, as long as the packets I access on that slower connection are treated equally.

Net Neutrality is not concerned with providing everyone the same internet speeds, but rather that packets are treated equally (ie throttle all packets equally, instead of discriminating against certain packets).

woodpanel2• 14 years ago

Thanks for making that a bit clearer to me.

I'm still confused why/if an ISP shouldn't be able to go further with offering me a "Non-You-Tube/Grooveshark-Plan" if it would be cheaper. I guess one critical point is that my data packages should not be looked into for privacy issues. But considering your mentioned plan: You could be rewarded for not using the 5mbs bandwith constantly.

So instead of looking into the data packages, using the "length of a data stream" to penalize heavy-users shouldn't be at odds with net neutrality. Right?

antithesis• 14 years ago

> The net neutrality law prohibits internet providers from interfering with the traffic of their users.

Censoring The Pirate Bay is interfering the with the users' traffic. Does that mean the court ruling of Ziggo and Xs4all being forces to censor that site, contradicts this legislation?

Prophasi2• 14 years ago

In the broadest sense, net neutrality's an abrogation of companies' rights to set terms for their products and allow consumers to agree or disagree. It limits the pricing and service dynamic.

Specifically for the net, it's a concession that we need gov't to wield the ultimate authority over detailed aspects of the Internet and step into many disputes between private parties if the specter of non-neutrality is raised (and of course it will be). You might think it's in your immediate favor, but voting for net neutrality isn't really voting for equal packet treatment: it's voting for government control over packet treatment, which will be turned against you in ways you haven't foreseen.

Net neutrality is like saying I can't open a store w/out handicap access, even though handicapped folks have the option of a) passing by my store to another; or b) finding a way to shop at mine because it's closer and has lower prices. "Shop neutrality" would dictate that if I won't treat everyone equally - although it's clear in my terms - I just shouldn't exist. There are those who agree with this analogy, too, of course.

You suppose the government should be the ultimate arbiter of what options should be on offer, rather than the entrepreneur and the market of free people? A dangerous way to look at it, I think.

No, the telecoms aren't by any stretch unregulated as it is. But if that's your complaint, tackle it from that direction, not by badly regulating bad regulations.

jordanb• 14 years ago

It's not regulation that causes there to be few choices among telecoms. It's the extremely high barrier to entry which is created by numerous factors, many natural.

Personally I sorta agree with you though, that I would rather have regulations that seek to break down the barriers to entry. For instance, require telcom companies to connect homes to a fiber network for a flat connection/service fee, and then allow any ISP to sell those customers internet access.

This is functionally like the network we had during the dial-up days. And the result was thousands of ISPs giving the typical customer dozens of choices. There was no need for government or anyone else to protect network neutrality because the market was functional, as is demonstrated by AOL finding it increasingly necessary to dismantle their walled-garden service to compete with the independent guys.

There were some halfhearted attempts to give ISPs access to the COs to offer DSL service beside the local telcom, but telcoms have been successful in sabotaging it.

Prophasi2• 14 years ago

The infrastructural barriers to entry are nontrivial, to be sure.

Further restrictions -- for example, kneecapping pricing structures that companies can use to differentiate themselves -- will only exacerbate that, though.

Another thought is that with the right market dynamic, I have more variety than it seems at first blush: cable, DSL, fiber, dial-up, satellite, WiMax, 3G, power lines, and possibly others. There's a variegation of technical specialty there that lends itself to horizontal competition by many companies. For heavy usage, several of these are currently poor... but looking at our present options and determining that only cable and fiber matter, for instance, is selling innovation short. It's surprising what can crop up out of nowhere when someone sees an unexploited opportunity.

The reason there hasn't been a mass flight from the standard telcos yet, I think, is that packet profiling has largely taken the form of capping torrents for heavy users, which is a small minority of the market -- and they're arguably being capped for the benefit of the majority. If the telcos make a gamble on harming access or speeds for the majority, there will be a scramble for alternatives, and they will present themselves.

Legislation is too often proposed with the deeply flawed assumption of an inelastic economic model.

thespin• 14 years ago

How do people in the Netherlands feel about the notion of "common carrier"?

http://www.columbia.edu/dlc/wp/citi/citinoam11.html

Is common carrier a useful concept for society?

What do you think?

blackman• 14 years ago

actually the third country after chile and norway

http://translate.google.com.au/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&#...

Netherlands first country in Europe with net neutrality

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