That's the most exciting part, what a time to be alive.
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European Union finally to kill roaming fees, embrace net neutrality
- Thread starter Funky Papa
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That's the most exciting part, what a time to be alive.
Sure. But IP TV does not and should not fall into this category. Specifically because it is a pure commercial venture, highly competitive, it swallows enormous bandwidth, and is entirely non-essential and non critical from a quality/immediacy/safety perspective. It allows backroom deals to favor some providers who pay over others who don't.
The problem with allowing it "as long as it does not affect regular internet" is that it's toothless. No one will know whether it does affect it, suits will take years and years with no actual effects.
American publication shits on an EU decision? Who'da thunk it
Edit: Actually it's from the UK site, so uh ignore that.
One day in the future we'll have som giant Wi-Fi field everywhere.
Again, do you really think they were going to ban cable TV, which is what your reading would do?
The vast majority of EU offerings in this area split the line and have one part be your internet connection and one part reserved for QoS, managed video traffic.
Urgh. When Ars did a survey I complained about them making Glyn Moody their chief policy writer. He's hyperbolic as fuck.
I don't know about that, but I still have my British line alive even though I haven't been in the UK for about three years. As long as I pay my bills, the phone company doesn't care where I am and the local authorities have no way of enforcing such faire use clause.
If anything, being able to get a contract from any European company would broadly expand the competition and drives prices down everywhere there is a cartel. Before we had a new fourth mobile operator here in France which drove the prices down massively, it was actually less expensive for me to use my British line in France, even with the high Pound and roaming fees.
He's just moody
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I'm aware of Alierta's maneuvering. He can get rekt.
As I see it, this allows telecoms to sell internet+IP TV packages with some bandwidth restricted for the IP TV part of the contract. So you get a 30 Mbps download stream and a 20 Mbps video stream out out of a 50 Mbps connection, or a separate channel for your IP TV and internet access. Both solutions can be currently found in Europe, so it makes sense that they didn't want to leave those connections aside.
Of course, it makes sense that things such as telesurgery would use their own infrastructure instead of a normal internet connection, but keeping separate access with QoS in secondary lines such as the ones deployed for patients and normal stuff could help in case shit goes down on a hospital, for example.
Also, I'm not a fan of ArsTechnica's Verge-like turn. They've been publishing some pretty terrible headlines lately.
It's not just Moody. Ars in general has been using clickbait titles much more than I'd like.
Yep, it's somewhat sensationalist. But in its essence, it's true. IPTV counts as a specialized service which is ridiculous. The data delivered to the users gets prioritized.
And after that, wireless power!
There's no net neutrality, IPTV is just an example: Effectively, the EU is explicitly doing away with net neutrality in wireless as well as wired networks.
Ok, that makes more sense. In that it's the same Internet service and infrastructure to everyone, but it may get split to the actual user based on what other services they choose to prioritise themselves. Say by buying IPTV.
The devil will still be in the details as it's not fully clear language. And the fact that there's zeroing allowed and the priority services don't seem to fall under the same lack of restrictions still seems like it might hurt startups who can't afford to pay to be prioritsed.
tamaster92
Member
great news
TatteredHat
Member
This might deserve its own thread, but the EU voted to implement Net Neutrality without amendments. This effectively means that the language used opens up a lot of loopholes that potentially allow ISP to do all the things that Net Neutrality seeks to prevent them from doing such as offering zero rating for certain traffic and throttling other traffic "in anticipation of congestion".
More info here:
The European Parliament just dealt a major blow to net neutrality
More info here:
The European Parliament just dealt a major blow to net neutrality
VanquishUK
Member
Excellent news!
That's fucked up 
Might want to take a look at the date of the OP and the last post by TatteredHat.
Might want to take a look at the date of the OP and the last post by TatteredHat.
anonymous_abc
Member
notsureifserious.gif
The text is a bit vague and leaves room for national governments (e.g. on the zero-rating topic). That said, I think it's a bit sensationalist to call this a "major blow to net neutrality". It's not as good as the proposed USA Title II system, but eh.
Again, it's more up to national governments. Articles trying to spin this as if the Parliament did something evil are lying or do not know how the EU works.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
No, not excellent. While the overall plan was good, the verbiage was not amended to exclude nubulous definitions, which means that there are a bunch of nasty loopholes that could be exploited by ISPs. The definition of specialized services is probably going to turn into a battlefield, as they have not been properly described.
The spirit of the law is honest and positive, but the text itself is subpar and watered down. It will also force countries with superior net neutrality laws such as the Netherlands to adopt lesser laws in complinace with the EU.
We will have, in effect, worse net neutrality laws than the United States.
Oettinger is a real chucklefuck and so are the Parliament. Once again, it seems like the Parliament is out to devirtue every good measure born in the Commission thanks to extense corporate lobbying. Since much of the enforcing will be done at national level, countries with forward thinking governments will probably remain safe. But those with more corrupt, easily manipulated ones such as Spain are going to face the consequences of this fucking spineless Parliament.
Somebody should create a new thread to avoid confusion.
Hmhmhmhm...
Commission (AKA bureaucrats) writes proposal. Council (AKA member states and ministers) reviews it, usually toning it down, going more to the "right" and leaving more room for national governments to do their own thing anyway. Parliament (AKA elected national representatives) reviews it as well, usually going more to the "left" and pro-consumer. Can be very difficult to reverse those Council changes though, plus the Parliament is put into a position of accepting the Council's wishes or potentially losing the compromise altogether.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I disagree with the bolded.
At the end of the day, the buck stops there. So it's up to the Parliament to undo or at very least fight whatever fuckery was introduced by the usually highly manipulated Council. Nothing of worth was done here, unlike it happened with the Freedom of Panorama debacle.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Fucking finally. Good job commission!
Fuck, lol, this is an old thread. Did anything change since June?
Fuck, lol, this is an old thread. Did anything change since June?
It varies from issue to issue. Also, it's often less an issue of lobbying by companies rather than that Parliament members decide to follow their country's position on some topics. E.g. Spanish MEPs, even of more left-wing parties, may be inclined to take positions favourable to Spain and are working together with the Spanish diplomatic representations in Brussels.
Disclaimer: I am a lobbyist and am trying to shove all blame away. Now excuse me while I carry my bags of euros to the bank.
This was a really bizarre and last-minute thing, originating with one French MEP (J-M Cavada IIRC). It was misinformed confusion and never a real threat. Even the original drafter of the amendment changed his mind again and said it was in error.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Surely, parties enforcing party lines in the Parliament in compliance with corporate interests count as lobbying, even if by proxy. The Spanish branch of the European People's Party is pretty grotesque in that sense. They will go to war in order to defend Telefónica and their ilk.
Still, the bigger debate about copyright laws was stained by a certain German MP trying to push some very much pro-Bild/big publisher ideas under the guise of protecting "quality journalism" from sites like Google News. I watched that debate (among others) and there's always some corporate shill trying to sneak something nasty in between the lines. Even if Cavada is a dumbass, thar particular session served to ilustrate that corporate interests have ample reach in the Parliament. Thank God it went nowhere, probably because it was so wildly random and forcefully shoehorned (that and the European bureaucracy not being very fond of last minute changes in general).
Anyway, my general point is that if the Parliament aims to serve the European citizens, they should do a better work fighting the Council instead of being yes men and blindly following party lines.
Edit: Full disclosure: I have no idea about what the Council tried to do in the case of net neutrality.
Skellig Gra
Member
Wow, bravo you beautiful bastards. You actually did it.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Fucking us over with vague language and definitions? Sure they did!
anonymous_abc
Member
Probably the reason a new thread for new news makes sense.
Randomizer123454444
Member
As long as spirit of the law is rock solid positive, loopholes can always be closed afterwards if they become a problem. Overall I'm glad hey passed this, even if it leaves some holes.
VanquishUK
Member
Dreadful news!
Seriously this is fucking shit...
You should probably just make a new thread. The OP and title are a bit misleading in this case (I know people should take the time to read it all, but that doesn't always work out).
OT, not happy about this news. I was really pulling for them to amend a few things. I guess we'll ultimately have to see how this all turns out. Ideally, nothing too detrimental comes of it, or maybe the amendments will be added once we see some very blatant abuse.
OT, not happy about this news. I was really pulling for them to amend a few things. I guess we'll ultimately have to see how this all turns out. Ideally, nothing too detrimental comes of it, or maybe the amendments will be added once we see some very blatant abuse.
ashecitism
Member
Then make a new thread. New thread for new news. These bumps always confuse people.
TatteredHat
Member
Right, I'll get to doing that.
soundahfekz
Member
Does this apply to visiting the EU from other countries as well, like the US if on a US based plan?
No more shoddy wifi and sim card popping would be great
No more shoddy wifi and sim card popping would be great
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
No. You'll need to purchase an European card/plan. This is European legislation after all, not a transoceanic telecom treaty.
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