European Commission consults on network neutrality

A consultation on key questions arising from the issue of net neutrality has been launched by the European Commission. It covers such issues as whether ISPs should be allowed to adopt certain traffic management practices, prioritizing one kind of Internet traffic over another, whether such traffic management practices may create problems and have unfair effects for users, whether the level of competition between different ISPs and the transparency requirements of the new telecom framework may be sufficient to avoid potential problems by allowing consumers' choice, whether the EU needs to act further to ensure fairness in the Internet market, or whether industry should take the lead. The commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes announced in April her intention to launch this consultation in order to take forward Europe's net neutrality debate. The consultation will feed into a commission report on net neutrality, which should be presented by the end of this year. All interested parties are invited to respond to the consultation by 30 September.