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[Kabouter]

It's not all involuntary euthanasia and cracking down on potheads here!

Net neutrality might be a bit of a touchy subject in the United States, but progress is being made in Europe. The Netherlands has become the first country to enact net neutrality laws, preventing ISPs from blocking or slowing down different types of internet traffic. It also stops ISPs from charging extra to access specific websites or services. The legislation was first put forward in June 2011, but just passed into law on Tuesday.

There are some exceptions to the law: ISPs can manage traffic if the network is congested, but otherwise providers are expected to treat all traffic as equal. The Netherlands joins Chile as the second country in the world that has firm net neutrality laws, while other countries are still debating the topic.

In the UK, Ofcom has threatened to impose net neutrality on ISPs if they don’t offer more transparency regarding their throttling practises, and in the US several companies have come under fire. Most recently Comcast was scrutinized by net neutrality advocates, as well as Netflix, regarding its Xfinity service. Comcast internet users have a 250GB data cap per month, but the Xfinity video streaming service for Xbox did not count towards that total.

The FCC does have net neutrality rules in place, but they’re limited in scope. ISPs can’t charge for additional access to competitors services, but they’re not restricted from offering faster access to specific services.

http://www.slashgear.com/netherlands-passes-net-neutrality-laws-09227337/

 

[Acidote]

Bravo for the Netherlands. It should be an EU mandate.

 

[Stumpokapow]

The article doesn't mention--does this apply just to wired connections, or the wireless spectrum as well? It's going to be an increasingly pertinent question going forward.

Edit: Also, good gravy Anglocentrism. It's an article that's nominally about the Netherlands, but let's look at the actual article contents:
US. Netherlands. Netherlands. Netherlands. Netherlands. Netherlands. UK/US. US. US. US. US.

There are as many sentences in the article about the US as about the Netherlands.

 

[Kabouter]

The article doesn't mention--does this apply just to wired connections, or the wireless spectrum as well? It's going to be an increasingly pertinent question going forward.

To the wireless spectrum as well, that's actually what prompted the law in the first place. One provider wanted to charge people extra for use of services like WhatsApp, because they weren't making the insane profits from making people pay out the ass for SMS that they were years prior.

 

[Hoo-doo]

And justice was served.

 

[jorma]

That's pretty cool. Sweden is going the other way, unfortunately - the biggest (and partially state owned) ISP in Sweden just declared that they intend to charge extra for skype traffic in their mobile network... :/

 

[Dragon]

The article doesn't mention--does this apply just to wired connections, or the wireless spectrum as well? It's going to be an increasingly pertinent question going forward.

So cell phone connections (3G, LTE, etc) vs. home/work networks is the distinction you're making?

 

[Stumpokapow]

To the wireless spectrum as well, that's actually what prompted the law in the first place. One provider wanted to charge people extra for use of services like WhatsApp.

lol

"Gee whiz, our high margin text messaging service is getting decimated by a free competitor. What can we do? Improve our product offering? Charge a reasonable price? Forcibly eject the competitor from the market by abusing our vertical integration! Much better solution!"

 

[BruiserBear]

That's pretty cool. Sweden is going the other way, unfortunately - the biggest (and partially state owned) ISP in Sweden just declared that they intend to charge extra for skype traffic in their mobile network... :/

That's ridiculous.

I have no hope of a net neutrality law passing here in the U.S. :/

 

[Kabouter]

lol

"Gee whiz, our high margin text messaging service is getting decimated by a free competitor. What can we do? Improve our product offering? Charge a reasonable price? Forcibly eject the competitor from the market by abusing our vertical integration! Much better solution!"

Oh don't worry, they already solved it. Cellphone providers clearly did the whole cartel thing, because mobile phone subscriptions, particularly those with internet access, have become a lot more expensive in the past year or so. The people best off now are the ones with old ass contracts.

 

[NinjaFridge]

Awesome news, hope more countries follow.

 

[Funky Papa]

lol

"Gee whiz, our high margin text messaging service is getting decimated by a free competitor. What can we do? Improve our product offering? Charge a reasonable price? Forcibly eject the competitor from the market by abusing our vertical integration! Much better solution!"

Telecoms in a nutshell.

Over Spain Telefonica is hellbent on forcing Google to pay because they are getting "free bandwith". And apparently other telecoms love the idea.

 

[Danielsan]

Oh don't worry, they already solved it. Cellphone providers clearly did the whole cartel thing, because prices for mobile phone subscriptions, particularly those with internet access, have become a lot more expensive in the past year or so. The people best off now are the ones with old ass contracts.

Pretty much. My contract ends in a couple of months and I'm not looking forward to switching to a new contract. Right now I pay €22,50 a month with unlimited internet access. My new contract will probably be bandwidth capped and more expensive by at least €5 to €7,50 a month...

 

[Dead Man]

Congtars Netherlands. Now the rest of the world needs to catch up.

 

[Hoo-doo]

Pretty much. My contract ends in a couple of months and I'm not looking forward to switching to a new contract. Right now I pay €22,50 a month with unlimited internet access. My new contract will probably be bandwidth capped and more expensive by at least €5 to €7,50 a month...

You are lucky. I also still rock my old unlimited internet contract, but I simply received a letter in the mail stating that they are going to start restricting my bandwith to 2GB a month.

Fucking T-mobile.

 

[swordfishtrombones]

Pretty much. My contract ends in a couple of months and I'm not looking forward to switching to a new contract. Right now I pay €22,50 a month with unlimited internet access. My new contract will probably be bandwidth capped and more expensive by at least €5 to €7,50 a month...

I may be wrong, but aren't you allowed to extend your contract with your old terms? I know that there will give you a hard time ("no sir, we don't have that type of contract any more, it's much better now!"), but technically I think you should be able to renew your old plan.

Same story here, by the way: 17.50 euro for unlimited internet, new offer 25 or so, with 250 MB/month "because I was such a loyal customer". Thanks Vodafone...

 

[Josh7289]

Edit: Also, good gravy Anglocentrism. It's an article that's nominally about the Netherlands, but let's look at the actual article contents:
US. Netherlands. Netherlands. Netherlands. Netherlands. Netherlands. UK/US. US. US. US. US.

There are as many sentences in the article about the US as about the Netherlands.

It's an English blog. It's logical to assume that those reading the blog would be interested in reading about the state of net neutrality in English-speaking countries after reading the news about Netherlands.

 

[ShinNL]

Bullshit, every site blocked by Stiching Brein is still blocked (some crappy anti-piracy organisation that takes a lot of money (including piracy tax on DVDs and CDs) and never gives a penny to the industry they're supposed to be protecting.

Don't freaking applaud for The Netherlands for it's internet policies. None of you. We have granted some organisation the power to censor anything on the internet in 24h as long as they send the request to ISPs. Anything. No check for them required! If they say so, it happens! Who the fuck grants that kind of power to an organization?

Before anyone jumps on my ass: I know it's not exactly the same issue as the net neutrality issue, but it is in a way. Censoring is just as fucked up (and also defies net neutrality). We have our own SOPA running atm.

Edit: You might just wanna add somewhere in the OP it's only for mobile internet. I don't see anywhere it's about home ISPs.

 

[SouthernDragon]

I <3 NL

 

[IISANDERII]

Bullshit, every site blocked by Stiching Brein is still blocked (some crappy anti-piracy organisation that takes a lot of money (including piracy tax on DVDs and CDs) and never gives a penny to the industry they're supposed to be protecting.

Don't freaking applaud for The Netherlands for it's internet policies. None of you. We have granted some organisation the power to censor anything on the internet in 24h as long as they send the request to ISPs. Anything. No check for them required! If they say so, it happens! Who the fuck grants that kind of power to an organization?

Before anyone jumps on my ass: I know it's not exactly the same issue as the net neutrality issue, but it is in a way. Censoring is just as fucked up (and also defies net neutrality). We have our own SOPA running atm.

Edit: You might just wanna add somewhere in the OP it's only for mobile internet. I don't see anywhere it's about home ISPs.

That does sound like too much power. What sites are blocked?

 

[Stormwatch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussCHoQttyQ

 

[ShinNL]

That does sound like too much power. What sites are blocked?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREIN

Basically, anything that could potentially enable illegal activities, whether the site has any or not, even when not hosting it, can be shut down. And by shutting down it means Brein sends the host name to the ISPs and they have to block it within 24h or they'll get huge fines. Within this criteria, if I post a link to random mp3 here on this forum, it means this forum could theoretically be shut down because it was, according to those standards, allowing the possibility of illegal unrightful content.

They say their original goal was thepiratebay, but in the meanwhile the list has grown huuuuuge. Some had to be reversed (the sites simply weren't illegal in any way), but that requires the website owner's effort to disprove what they claim and it needs a whole court system to reverse what they can do with just a simple email of "shut this down plx". SOPA, anyone?

Nothing but criticism for this organization from the very beginning. Their own activities are pretty much illegal, as I personally contacted them many years ago about explanations of where the taxes are going. The money they are receiving from unlawful taxes are basically going into their pockets. They haven't been sending any of the money they're receiving back to the industry, even though that was 1. the reason they were getting the collected taxes, 2. their promise/reason of existence as claimed by them, 3. ordered by court (and still not being correctly fulfilled).

It's not a government organization, it's just a random group of people.

So please, don't praise our internet. It's being fucked as of right now.

 

[dragonelite]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREIN

Basically, anything that could potentially enable illegal activities, whether the site has any or not, even when not hosting it, can be shut down. And by shutting down it means Brein sends the host name to the ISPs and they have to block it within 24h or they'll get huge fines. Within this criteria, if I post a link to random mp3 here on this forum, it means this forum could theoretically be shut down because it was, according to those standards, allowing the possibility of illegal unrightful content.

They say their original goal was thepiratebay, but in the meanwhile the list has grown huuuuuge. Some had to be reversed (the sites simply weren't illegal in any way), but that requires the website owner's effort to disprove what they claim and it needs a whole court system to reverse what they can do with just a simple email of "shut this down plx". SOPA, anyone?

Nothing but criticism for this organization from the very beginning. Their own activities are pretty much illegal, as I personally contacted them many years ago about explanations of where the taxes are going. The money they are receiving from unlawful taxes are basically going into their pockets. They haven't been sending any of the money they're receiving back to the industry, even though that was 1. the reason they were getting the collected taxes, 2. their promise/reason of existence as claimed by them, 3. ordered by court (and still not being correctly fulfilled).

It's not a government organization, it's just a random group of people.

So please, don't praise our internet. It's being fucked as of right now.

Fuck op met Brein.

 

[Riggs]

Wow this is awesome wish our gov in the states could learn from you guys.

 

[TheContact]

Come on US. Follow suit.

 

[ShinNL]

^

People who only read the OP will now think the Dutch internet is awesome. Annoying.

Kabouter, you really really should at least add in the OP it's about Telecom services, not general ISPs.

 

[Kabouter]

^

People who only read the OP will now think the Dutch internet is awesome. Annoying.

Kabouter, you really really should at least add in the OP it's about Telecom services, not general ISPs.

The Telecom law applies to general ISPs just as it applies to cellphone providers, I don't understand what you would want me to add. Your thing is not related to this specific issue.

 

[dragonelite]

Wow this is awesome wish our gov in the states could learn from you guys.

Not when the media mafia has the isp by the balls.
But i believe Eu court said isp aren't responsible for their customers behaviour.
So maybe their is hope for the isp to combat Brein.

 

[echoshifting]

I <3 NL

^

 

[Metalmurphy]

We need this in my country (Portugal).

The traffic shaping here is pathetic, starts around 4PM and ends at 2AM on the dot. P2P and sites like Youtube get limited to 200kbps...

I seriously don't understand why this is done because if I could I could spend those 10 hours downloading at 30Mbps from a direct http download.


But regarding the OP, I see this: "There are some exceptions to the law: ISPs can manage traffic if the network is congested" as an loophole ISPs can easily exploit.

 

[Blunt]

All I know is that my gut says 'maybe'.

 

[ShinNL]

The Telecom law applies to general ISPs just as it applies to cellphone providers, I don't understand what you would want me to add. Your thing is not related to this specific issue.

That's a pretty ignorant thing to say. Censoring is not related to net neutrality? It's a complete contradiction. Your OP even specifically mentions the blocking of certain types of internet traffic. Guess what's happening at the moment? Blocking of certain types of internet traffic.

 

[7threst]

Not when the media mafia has the isp by the balls.
But i believe Eu court said isp aren't responsible for their customers behaviour.
So maybe their is hope for the isp to combat Brein.

Would that be possible? Because if that's the case Brein is losing more and more ground to stand on.

 

[Magypsy]

Well KPN (a telecom provider here in the Netherlands) still hasn't blocked anything so yay for me! But yeah BREIN seriously sucks.

Also, the blockade they put up for The Pirate Bay is so easy to circumvent it's pathetic. I believe in the last court case the providers proved that the blockade didn't do shit for the piracy here. BREIN kept claiming that piracy did decrease to an extent.

I'm not trying to condone piracy by the way, but I'm not a fan of censorship.