OFCOM warns on EU net neutrality rules

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Ofcom, the British telecommunications regulator, has warned that proposed European rules safeguarding “net neutrality” could be damaging if they fail to recognize the need for Internet management.

The European Parliament agreed proposals to ensure “net neutrality”, the concept of unrestricted access to the internet. The plans would, for example, ban “business class” internet access for companies willing to pay more. But support for a more flexible approach to internet management has emerged from the UK, where the regulator Ofcom has said that “well-intentioned but overprescriptive and detailed legislation may deliver the opposite of the intended effect”. In a speech, Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, expressed concern that such legislation would mean “not more certainty but less. Not the timely exercise of reasonable objective judgment, but the pursuit of time-consuming and self-interested litigation”. Richards has, as an alternative, outlined a view on legislation that allows both sustaining the quality and performance of the internet and the provision of managed services.


OFCOM warns on EU net neutrality rules