Do we need net neutrality regulation in Europe? – WS 08 2012

15 June 2012 | 11:30-13:00
Programme overview 2012

People

Key Participants

• Amelia Andersdotter, Member of the European Parliament
• Oskar Jonsson, Swedish Institute for Assistive Technology
• Narine Khachatryan, Media Education Center
• Göran Marby, European Regulators for Electronic Communication
• Daniel Pataki, European Telecommunications Network Operators Association
• Jean-Jacques Sahel, Microsoft
• Jéremíe Zimmermann, La Quadrature du Net

Moderator

• Frederic Donck, Internet Society

Transcript

Provided by: Caption First, Inc., P.O. Box 3066, Monument, CO 80132, Phone: +001-719-481-9835, www.captionfirst.com

This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Okay. So I suggest we start this great session. This is certainly interesting but also a great panel. We will introduce everyone in a few minutes, but from the menu of today you can see that we are multistakeholder. We have policymakers, regulators, civil society, industry, service providers. We will have varied views and real interesting.

My name is Frederic Donck. I am the director of the European Union of Internet Society. No need to introduce the Internet Society. Just know that you have chapters. We have about 120 organisation members and about 60,000 individual members around the world. Just about the chapters, I would like to thank our Swedish chapters for the great great job that they have made in organising this session. So Jan, Yasmine, thanks a lot.

I am going to moderate this session. To help me moderate the remote participation and starting with Peter Thornqvist. He is an expert on these issues. He will take care of remote participation. We have the community manager for digital which is a – we have Jan Flodin. And, of course, we look forward to a very interactive participation and trust me I shall make sure that you have flexibility to join in the debate.

Before we start let me introduce and start a couple of years ago and actually at that time people were not talking to each other. Black and white discussion between the pro and anti Net Neutrality, traffic management, discrimination, freedom of speech. Maybe we try to focus on the outcome. We have seen some maturity in the last months and years. People are talking. This is the value of an open dialogue. And I believe that we will tend to agree that network management assist in the – needs to be operated in a transparent way. We will certainly come back on this. Also there is wide recognition that Internet should remain open. At least I haven’t heard many people in the public say in their country that reality might also meet – does it mean sugar and spice everywhere? Not really.

As you might have noticed a few days ago Ethiopia passed a law of criminalizing the use of the Internet. It is not me saying. You might have seen the recent firing at the end of May that recognized in Europe you have blocking of VoiceOver IP. Again that will be interesting to have the views of all participants today.

So one of the main questions might be do we have effective competition in Europe. It might safeguard the openness of Internet, question mark. We are interested to hear a bit more from our panelists. And before I give the floor to the panelists I would like to give you, Jan, the floor for some housekeeping issues and then we will take the floor back. Thank you.

>> JAN FLODIN: Thank you, Frederic. I am Jan Flodin from the Internet Society Sweden chapter and I have organised this workshop with my team. A few things about online inclusion. We are going to have both the floor and the people over the Internet to be able to put questions to the panelists here. And therefore you have two options, if you do that. One is to go through WebEx on the URL that is on the side on that and log in, install the client and then you can chat. And then Peter Thornqvist will pick you up and if you are on a hub, that is the physical room or rooms somewhere in the world where people have gone far to get there and we will give you a priority in that case. So don’t despair. If you are on a hub somewhere and gathered to see this, we will try to get you through.

As for you that are just looking at the Webcasts without logging in, you can always use Twitter and there are two hash tags and one is EuroDIG. That is the same hash tag for everything that goes on here at EuroDIG. If you have a question for this question, include EuroDIGNN and then Linda Sandbaker will – it will be easier for her to pick you up and flag questions directly to the panel and we hope we have online inclusion in this workshop. Thank you.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you. Does this work? Yeah. So here are the rules of the game. I have asked each of the panelists to just make a brief introduction of their different parts they want to present to you. No more than five to eight minutes. And I will present them by alphabetical order. No questions during this period. The floor will be open after each of them has a chance to – had a chance to present his points or his or her points.

Starting with you Amelia, Amelia Andersdotter, you are a member of the European Parliament and you represent the Pirate party here in Sweden. Your focus are telecoms and IPR and you have had a leading role in the last discussion about ACTA and I resist asking you where we are and that’s another issue and debate. I will give you the floor.

>> AMELIA ANDERSDOTTER: Thank you very much. So I say – our Moderator said I work in European Parliament. Now Net Neutrality I would like to define as the ability of users and entrepreneurs and companies to engage freely on the Internet infrastructure and activities without being down prioritized by the owners of that infrastructure. So basically any kind of prioritization of traffic which is commercially motivated would not fall in to my definition of Net Neutrality.

My impression of the current debates on Net Neutrality that we are having in Brussels very often you find telecom operators coming in and say it is a lot more complicated and I am sure that some of our colleagues here will talk about how complicated. An Internet service can have an interest of not forwarding lots of Spam. When it is commercially motivated, when you block Skype, you don’t want the competition, this would be a commercial prioritization. If you are requesting that one provider of videos by the BBC, which does public broadcasting, and you want extra money from them because they generate traffic on your infrastructure, that would also not be Net Neutrality. I think the findings from BEREC earlier this year may show we need some more legislative action than merely requiring transparency. One very common statement you hear in Brussels now is that transparency can solve the problem for consumer but this is not technically true. Most of our infrastructure is privately owned and in many areas in Europe actually you only have one infrastructure provider or you only have one service provider that does all of the provision on that infrastructure.

Like I lived in Belgium for two years. If you want a cable connection, you effectively only have one choice. You need to have something that requires this single available provider to treat you fairly. Whether you are a private consumer engaging in free speech, whether you are a commercial entity on a small level trying to provide a service or start up a service, I think if you miss this opportunity to set common norms for this market and this infrastructure now, we risk losing actually a very nice market and marketplace and a very nice social place also where we have had so many opportunities in the past and where we could keep them. And therefore I see very little recourse of this action other than taking after, for instance, the Netherlands that made regulation one and a half years ago. I was kind of hoping that my own Government would move ahead and take initiative on this issue. But this appears currently not to be the case.

So let’s see what happens on the European level after the BEREC findings.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Okay. Thank you, Amelia. Our next speaker will be Daniel Pataki. Daniel is the new director of the European Telecommunications Network. He joined in February this year. He is a fellow President of Hungary National Communication Authority, the European regulators group. And prior to this Daniel was Hungary’s Deputy State Secretary in charge of communication at the Ministry of IT and Telecommunications. And before that he held several positions in the private sector. Happy to have you on board today and I give you the floor.

>> DANIEL PATAKI: Thank you for the nice introduction. I think that will be one of the debates which is one of the most interesting ones I had in the last few years, my career. I think you go by alphabetical order. Asked us to be prepared and to be brief. Then I could be very brief and when you ask the question do we need Net Neutrality regulation in Europe more than what we have, the very short answer is no. That is our opinion. A little bit longer answer is no because we think that the regulatory framework which exists today is fit for purpose and we don’t think that it should be enhanced.

If you want an even longer answer but we will debate on this I think today is I can give you why we think there is no need for further regulations. One is when I hear you speaking, I think and I was, you know, in the policy making side for a long time and one of the mistakes I think policymakers can do but I don’t say that anyone does it, you look at operators as the enemy and then somebody they are there against the consumer. We tend to forget that these companies live off the consumer. And you might find places in Europe, I agree, you would have only one infrastructure. But when we get to going, I think you will say even in Sweden I think it is and you know better than I, I don’t live here, but in many places in Europe you have several infrastructures. So I think that competition is there. I think that the European regulatory story was a successful story. So consumers have a choice. So I don’t see it is a general point, I didn’t put there, but after hearing you, I don’t see there is – that Europe is in a bad situation when you look at consumers’ choice and that means that no, I think no single operator can have that dominate power that you would abuse, that finally consumers would not have a choice. But you and I differ.

So the longer answer and the other thing is we are pro consumer because the consumer pays us. That’s one thing. The second one is no – there is misunderstanding during the last couple of, no member is against transparency or openness or freedom of speech. I think many people, we see it as there is a kind of confusion between what is freedom of Internet and the values it gives or the values it gives to society. And there as you called it kind of a technical problem, business model problem but we don’t see that the – we think that the two – it is not – you can – you can fulfill both basically interests. Because if you – we believe that if you further do Net Neutrality regulation we think that you would limit just if you look at the consumer point of view, that you would limit the consumer’s choice. They won’t be able to – operators won’t be able to provide differentiated services.

Somebody gave me an example just in Brussels. It would like maybe – an exaggerated example. You have one type of car sold in Europe, the only thing that you can buy from several agents. What you are talking about, how could you not only have one car, luxury car or another car, without deteriorating or having to mirror the best effort of Internet even better. And if you look at – so I think it would be bad or we think it would be bad for the consumer choice, it would be bad for innovation and be unnecessary. And finally, if you cannot innovate you can’t have differentiated services and it would be bad for competition. And it has been mentioned I think and we will talk about the so-called network problem or the huge traffic problem, then we see how our operators can cope with the huge traffic but also how can these Networks could be enabled, we call it smart Networks. That it is not only to cope with one traffic and we are not – and also have to say we are against blocking as well. But when we talk about the differentiated service I can cite you an example but this is off the top of my head. So we talk about when, for instance, in a P curve differentiated service you can download and have video in high definition or in low resolution and then that would be, you know, hypothetically two different kind of packages someone could have because that could enable, of course, to monitorize and then to ask for a different package from the consumer side. But then if you have a differentiated offer like this you should enable your network to be able to provide this. And this is also good for the content providers because then you provide the limited service to the consumer. So I think I might have been long. So I will stop.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Excellent. Thank you, Daniel. And I can see already some questions arising but thank you for making that point clear. Our next speaker is Goran Marby. I am sure I don’t need to introduce. You have been the host for a few days and I know in a few hours you will be a happy man because this will be an excellent conference. Let me say a few words about you. You are both a member with BEREC and also the Chair responsible for Net Neutrality. We have happy to have you here. You have more than 15 years of work and experience in the IT sector. You come from the AppGate security where you were CEO. And you have an impressive list of companies where you hold several executive positions including with Cisco in Sweden. We are happy to have you here, Goran, and the floor is yours.

>> GORAN MARBY: Thank you very much and thank you for saying 15 and it is really 25. Sitting here listening I am the civil servant here I think. You can tell by my gray suit and tie. I work for the Government and my job is to make sure that everyone in Sweden has a good communication for a good price. What I am afraid of in this discussion is someone decides what the consumer wants. I am a civil servant. Am I the right person to make that decision over you? That I would sit down one day and define this is what you want.

I bought my first Internet access in 1992 and I said this many times. I think I have been around for awhile and the funny thing with this technology you can become young all the time. It reinvents itself every 15 years and you have to learn again and again and again. It will change in the next coming years as well.

The reason why Internet and Karl talked about that earlier, nobody has really interfered in what Internet has become. Think about it, 15, 20 years ago this is how now we are going to define Internet. It is going to be like this. I think that it wouldn’t have been what it is today if someone tried to define it. I think this whole discussion comes around the fact that we often – I often end up in Net Neutrality discussions and I know everyone sitting there being the hard core regulator saying hey, what about the customers. How do we actually know what the customer wants in the future.

I often use my own mother as an example. She is 81 years old and probably watching right now. Hello Mother. She uses the Internet very scarcely. She uses Skype to talk to my brother’s son in London and she goes to bridge Internet and she pays an equal amount of money as I do. When you started out with Internet you had to pay by minute. Do you remember that? Anyone here knows how the Ace modem sounds like telephone modems? Yeah, we all have gray suits doing that. And the business models have changed over time. The way we see Internet has grown and things have happened and I am not sure that right now we can sit down and just decide this is what Internet is going to be in the future and therefore what we are saying what my job really is is to make sure that the customers can make that choice, that they can have an independent choice and they can vote with their feet. We mean that competition is one of the most important things and I agree with the panelist before me talking about in some area there is no competition.

We have to address that fact and we have to make sure there is competition and the customer can choose because in the end it is the citizen should be able to make the decision. One final point, I think that one of the reasons why Internet has grown so fast in such a beautiful way it is one of the first technologies that consumers have been driven the whole thing. It is actually what you have done that in a way formed the Internet. It is kind of an invisible house that all your different perspectives of Internet has created what we call Internet and consumers still today it is not the operators that came up with Facebook. Somewhere along the line the consumer has been much more involved in this technology than anywhere else before because you are part of controlling the content. And I am afraid of making that logic going away. Being a civil servant that because you are better at taking those decisions than I am. Thank you.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you very much. And our next speaker will be Jean-Jacques Sahel. Jean-Jacques comes from the British Government and he serves the UK interest in many telecoms in Europe and around the world, ITU, WTO, WSIS and WPO. He is active in the discussions in regulatory framework in Europe. We are happy to have you on board and I give you the floor.

>> JEAN-JACQUES SAHEL: Thank you. And good morning, everyone. I think I would start because this is a European dialogue on Internet Governance by referring to the end to end principle and effectively going back to the very early days of the Internet. Very simple principle of this Network of Networks that any end point attached to that Network would be able to talk to any other end point of Network. Any user of the Internet can connect, exchange information with any end point. That’s the basic principle of the Internet. We have benefitted from over the last 20 years since the Internet became commercial and public if you will.

And what that enables is not only for users to access in theory everything they wanted on the Internet but also importantly it enables anyone to come up with a new product. For instance, to post a blog to create a website and to launch an application freely and to have anyone else connected to the Network, able to access it and use it as much as they wanted. It is the concept of innovation without permission. You can innovate without having to ask anyone permission to do so and that in turn has generated sort of and presented unprecedented levels of contributions to the Internet Society that the Internet has brought us in the last 20 years. That’s kind of the background. And if we think about how to define that neutrality to that, there was a nice phrase in the new director’s citizen’s directory, end users should be able to access and distribute the content services and applications of their choice on the Internet without prejudice to the need to preserve security and integrity of Network.

That’s probably one of the closest definitions of Net Neutrality that we have in the European context. Actually very much mirrors what we hear from other places, but it is principles that have been mentioned and enshrined in law or regulatory decisions. It is basically saying as a user once you connect to the Internet you should be able to do whatever you want. And the only exceptions should be traffic management for security, Network security or genuine technical reasons such as management of congestion in moments when that arises. I want to give an idea of what we describe the open character of the Internet and I think what’s really important if you move on from that is actually this ability for users to have access for this information and users can be citizens as much as, you know, consumers businesses, is that innovation creates consumer demand for Internet access. That consumer demand for Internet provides access for telecom operators and encourages them to invest further. And therefore this increased Network demand and creates new possibilities for innovation. And what is really important is to realise how much we have benefitted as societies from that cycle.

I think it is various reports that were published in recent years. For instance, McKenzie last year. The Internet contributed to more than 20% growth over the economies in the past five years annually. And we should be careful to preserve that virtuous cycle. If we want to continue and maximize the benefits that we get from the Internet for our societies and for our economies we have to be careful not to imbalance the virtuous cycle. When we look at the situation in Europe, I think we see that there are very obvious problems. We – I have made very similar points to that which you find in the BEREC report published just two weeks ago on traffic management across Europe already five years ago. It is not a new problem. The – there is basically a systemic discrimination against various applications which are types of applications which are forbidden or surcharged using contractual restrictions and possibly technically as well.

And that touches VoiceOver IP but also peer to peer technologies and many other users such as using your phone as a modem or streamed content. Video and audio, instant messaging, et cetera, et cetera, which are frankly routinely prohibited. And this is especially the case in mobile access to the Internet and in Europe. And I have to stress that. If you look at a map of the world and you look at restrictions that are imposed not by Governments but by private entities on what users can do with the Internet, actually Europe is in a very bad place. And I think this is a message we have tried to give for the past four, five years and we need to pay attention to it. And we now need to move ahead and actually protect that virtuous cycle and we don’t think it has to be done in a way in which inhibits any part of this value chain, any part of this virtuous cycle. There is a way forward where any thoughts of that valid to innovate and continue to prosper without imbalancing the other parts. And I think we will come back in more detail on many aspects later in the question time.

I think we need fairly simple steps. First it is adopting, endorsing very clearly the principle that the open nature of the Internet should be preserved and that users should be able to decide what they do online with the only exception being traffic management for purely technical reasons or security reasons, not out of commercial rivalry. We should further have a principle to adopt a behavioral standard whereby harmful discrimination against certain services or types of application and services is prohibited. And we should have a sufficient and forceful mechanism to make that happen and that doesn’t automatically mean regulation.

Those are the sort of principles that we need to consider. We need to have an open Internet as a norm. It does not mean that we cannot launch other types of services on top of the Internet beyond the Internet, but I think we need to be very careful not to damage the virtuous cycle of the Internet that has brought us so much. And in terms of economic difficulties has the chance to bring us so much more but we can’t afford to have that innovation stifled because it will bring it to a halt and we will all suffer in the value chain. To quote the other panelist I, too, am afraid what they decide for consumers online. Consumers are being told what they should do on the net. They are being told especially what they should not do on the net. That’s the situation now and they are being told that by some actors in the value chain. I am not just afraid that someone decides for consumers what they want. It is happening now. That needs to be addressed. Thank you.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you, Jean-Jacques. Our next speaker is Jeremie Zimmermann. He is described as a hacker in the primary sense of technology. Enthusiast, would like to understand and not be captured by and make it work better. He is also the cofounder of La Quadrature du Net which is a well-known group defending the rights of citizens on the Internet. Has been very active in different policy debates in Europe on freedom of expression, Copyright and online privacy. It is a pleasure to have you here today.

>> JEREMIE ZIMMERMANN: Thank you. And thank you very much for the invitation and the opportunity to speak here. It is funny in a way to ask to an industry do you think there is a need for more regulation for yourself. Just that you ask the banking industry do you think there is a need for more regulation for banking. Of course, not; banking is doing fine. And do you think there is a need for more regulation for the industry, for the industry? Of course, not. What we are doing is good for everyone. So from that point of view it is natural in a way that my copanelist doesn’t see the urgency that we may see as citizens to regulate on Net Neutrality but in the end I would agree it is a question of choice. It is a question of choice but it is the choice of the society that we have to make here.

Our society is witnessing the very beginning of the Internet age. We have seen in the last years the impact that Wikipedia, that WikiLeaks, that Arab Spring. We noticed what organisation online our citizens could do to try to change the world, try to change society. We have witnessed fast paced evolution and innovation and technology that bring new services to raise and become the next big thing in six months of time.

We have seen usage that weren’t imagined before, just arise out of crisis, out of urgency. Where collective mapping of a disaster tremendously helped the recovery with an open street map. And here we are facing the choice of a society. Do we want this universal architecture that we call the Internet to continue to enable everyone? And I insist on the word universal. Enable everyone universally with the very same opportunities for innovation, for expression, for participation. We let a few dominate actors decide for commercial purposes what can be done with infrastructure. We argue and we can discuss that in great details maybe in the open discussion that any discrimination of end user Internet connection can lead to uncompetitive practices. And this is obvious when an operator, for instance, blocks VoiceOver IP. When on the other hand, it is selling very expensive international minutes of telecommunications. It is also obvious when an operator blocks or restricts, slows down the connection to one video service when it hosts its own video service.

But we also argue that discrimination in Internet traffic goes against the investment logic that is the one that so far was the origin growth of the Network and we heard the representative from ETNO that it is normal during peak hours we restrict some communications. It is not normal. What we expect from a telecom operator even during peak hours communication goes smoothly. And if repeatedly during peak hours there is congestion, then that means that the infrastructure has to scale. It is about investing in infrastructure to avoid the congestion. This is the job of a telecom operator and this is what we pay him or her for.

So we argue that by discriminating communications operators will have an incentive to invest less in the growth of the capacity of the infrastructure but instead will invest in this hardware that allows for the discrimination. Also we argue that discrimination of the communication damages freedoms. First of all, freedom of communication. Because the next big thing, the next tool we will use for communicating hasn’t been invented yet. Restriction may band me from inventing it. Because some communication usage are marginal or underground. For some reason, some situations, some whistleblowers have to use some secret parts of the Internet. We shouldn’t ask the operator permission to use the Network in order to operate in an oppressive regime and that’s obvious. What Jean-Jacques just said, we argue that – because the operator has a hand on who will be able to access to the end users. And one very explicit example is of Bamm user, it is a startup that allows people to stream movies on their mobile phones. It appeared in Sweden where such mobile companies allow them to go through. End user couldn’t have emerged in France.

And so where do we stand now? We as La Quadrature du Net launched this platform called Respect My Net where we encourage citizens to come and report restrictions being done by the operators. We use this to fuel the BEREC mission, the fact finding exercise of BEREC and we found that in more than half of the Member States of the EU citizens are facing restrictions. We found that in more than 170 types of contracts communications were restricted. We found that the problem is actually widespread. And it is very interesting to look at the evolution in the discourse of BEREC. And I guess it helps imagine the tremendous pressure that could weigh on this body and the fantastic importance, economic and influential importance of these issues on the EU legislature. Because when BEREC published its preliminary finding the situation was alarming. There was a vast number of users whose connection was restricted and in many cases didn’t pass inspection. And this was considered by BEREC in its preliminary finding as being alarming. Then the final report was published and vocabulary got very smooth. Now it is just a quantitative approach. About 20%, maybe up to 50% of a specific segment of market users are restricted. 40% of EU citizens are potentially restricted, but it is not all of them at the same time, you know? There might be cyanide in some Yogos but not in all of them. So it is almost okay.

So I am very much disturbed that some official bodies supposed to be neutral and impartial such as BEREC can change its language that much. And I encourage you to read the fine print of the BEREC report to see how alarming this situation truly is. One of the main questions that has arisen by BEREC in its finding is the use of depacket decision. In order to restrict communications operators increasing use of technology that is extremely invasive and the European advisor said we are going contrary – there is no good use of packet inspection when it comes to processing general communication of all the users of the Network. So this is my main concern today because those equipments that are being deployed by most of the operators today to do the depacket inspection in order to restrict and discriminate user communications are the very same type of equipment that are used in regime for doing political censorship of Networks. The same kind of equipment that the entertainment industry dream of using for sharing works between individuals. We are facing a choice of society and those issues are connected and I think our citizens have an important role to play. Thank you.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you. Lots of questions indeed. So we will try to speed up a bit so that everyone can actually react to some of your questions. Next speaker, Narine Khachatryan. I try to work with my pronunciation. You are the cofounder of the Media Education Center which is a leading NGO which pioneered media literacy, Internet safety projects in Armenia and initiated a number of e-learning and e-participation activities in the country. You have written numerous Articles in ICT. You have represented Armenia in many different places at an international level. And last but not least you are an ISOC member and a member of the ISOC next generation leaders programme. Thank you for being here today.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation and to speak at this workshop. I would approach the issue of Network neutrality from the information literacy perspective. We are saturated with media today that often do not even notice that our constant leaks pose to different messages which become more and more powerful with the development of information technologies and we can become easily misinformed. Meanwhile healthy democracy as it was mentioned during different workshops at different EuroDIG inform citizens who need correct information to make better decisions. So being an instrument of social and political change media seek to promote certain values and consequently our opinions and attitudes are shaped by what we read to be able to promote our interests and safeguard our rights. We need to orientate between thousands of different messages coming from different sources, from advertisement industry, commercial promotion, political parties, religious groups, et cetera. Yet economic to different media platforms can exclude many people from a considerable proportion of information online.

Exercise control by influencing messages or tools for interpreting these messages and determining the underlying values and I think no nobody in this room can answer this question. So what media literacy and information literacy is about and what will be the impact of tiered access on citizen information and media literacy skills. Three areas of competence constitute media literacy; capacity for critical evaluation of content, truthfulness and people to produce the content and the ability to produce and communicate knowledge. This includes communicative skills and participative skills and content creation capacity. So if Net Neutrality is not protected first we will have different levels of access to media content which will depend on the paying capacity of people, the platform they use, High speed they use and the geographic area they live in.

Meanwhile access to neutrality of resource of information on diverse media platforms is a precondition for development of users competencies. If citizens have a possibility to compare and analyze information from various sources and platforms they are more likely to develop critical thinking skills because it is not easy at all to make independent judgments in the purified environment of prioritized news or information. Moreover the plurality of sources and media content and platforms definitely result in much stronger content creation capacities and social communication skills. So what is going on now on a global stage, the capacity to process information is becoming increasingly unequal. People in the developed world communicate many times more information than people in the developing world. And more economic careers to different media platforms can even more isolate people and restrict them in communicating information and knowledge to each other.

Armenia is a new democracy. So I am going to bring a very fresh example from our country. This is a new democracy where most of successful initiatives come from the bottom. Today Internet is accessible to 50% of the Armenian population and a primary source for information of the 30% of the population. Armenia has gained a – in recent parliament reelections was with demonstration of that. The passing transparent environment thanks to citizen journalism and various online tools and platforms ensure transparency and turn ordinary people equipped with mobile phones turn in to observers of election. I truly think and I believe that Armenian people who 20 years ago got free of the totally uncensored media don’t miss the old life.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: We need to be brief. So we will come to you Oskar for the last presentation of the day. I am really looking forward to your presentation as well. Oskar, you work with the Swedish Institute of Assistive Technology as a programme manage for the three year programme Digital Social Alarms. You also have been part of initiating innovation pioneers. And you also previously worked in industry as a project manager with the development of consumer products and service based on IP. Oskar, the floor is yours. Thank you.

>> OSKAR JONSSON: I have a Swedish Government commission to work with this three year programme and it is about to handle the technology shift for social alarms. And very quickly social alarms is you push a button and you speak through a speaker with an alarm receiving a signal. And then they can send people to your home and assist you or you can ask things or you can use it as an emergency, in emergency situations also. So it is used a lot and this speaking thing is very important. And now we have 200,000 social alarms that are analog based in Sweden and much more in Europe.

And they are communicating with tones. And the new thing is that we now have to really fast exchange them to social alarms units that you plug in in to your broadband. And this communicates with IP, VoiceOver IP. And a very important service to handle the situation where we get more and more elderly in the homes. And we also – elderly people that doesn’t even have computer needs, open access to Internet to use their social alarms.

And also there has been discussions about prioritization and we don’t see any need for prioritization to handle e-health. This unit sends a heartbeat every second, minute and if on the receiving side it doesn’t work in ten minutes you have a whole system with personnel and you can call them and so on. You build security in a different way. But what we need is to be able to install these units very simply in households. We also – this is vulnerable people using this kind of system. And they don’t need like contracts with telecom operators that is limiting their access and they have a hard time understanding the contracts that they are signing. And for us we see now that telecom operators are very good at business model innovation. They are very interested in diversifying their offer to consumers and limit in different levels. And this can become in that way that they want to protect their own IP telephone business. So they offer very low for access that blocks our open standards, SIP, for example, to initiate these social alarms. But they also have this offer of 80 Euros and you can get free access and these vulnerable people have very little money. And also the taxpayers in Europe do – they want to be able to handle this boom of elderly very cheap or real expensive and this is kind of you call it permission free innovation. So this is the next Skype. But we are not as successful as Skype.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Okay. Thank you very much. Very concrete examples. I am happy that you were able to present this. Time is flying. So let me maybe shoot the first questions. I am looking at you, Goran, just because you are the host of this event but also because I notice something in your own garden by the way. I was happily packing to come to Stockholm and just opened the news, the local news and then I found strong favor to Internet and I call it accessible to all. Wonderful, I am coming to the country of open Internet. And then a few sentences that it is allowing Skype and online services later this year if customers would pay an additional charge. And I was a bit puzzled. I thought that Swedish open Internet does not spell the same way that I have. I would like to have your view on this. Are we talking about the open Internet? Are we talking about data services. And my question is if I am not happy in Sweden, can I vote with my feet? Is there enough competition and transparency and ability to switch really? So the question is just not for you. I would like the panelists to react to this kind of stuff. Thank you.

>> GORAN MARBY: First of all, what I want to comment on is a separate operator. And the reason for that if anyone was here this morning during the debate with all the big people sitting here to ex-Prime Ministers and the Queen and they talked about media and the changing business models of media. And they said something that I thought was very interesting and they said that customers don’t want something they won’t buy from that supplier. And without saying what I believe, what I think if customers do not want to pay for any service they would go to somewhere else and the operator who provides that service, you know, won’t comply he will go down.

I think that sometimes we lose track on the fact that consumers have enormous power and I want to make a couple of small initiatives related to discussions. Every time we go in to the Network Neutrality debate we end up talking about democracy, freedom of speech, et cetera. I am regulating the infrastructure practice. At least in my country if the operators would do something against freedom of speech, against the Internet we would break other laws. On one side I have some of the representatives, some of the influential companies in Europe making a lot of money, a lot of revenue and investing a lot. On the other hand, I have a representative of one of the largest software providers in the world and I am in between. I feel very comfy actually.

It is about different business models and different business interests. I am talking about the BEREC report which is a snapshot on the situation in Europe and as you know I am a little bit involved in that report. What we said in that report is that we believe there should be a competitive market. Did we say there was a competitive market everywhere? No, we didn’t say that. In everyday work as a regulator around Europe we know there are places that don’t have the best competition. In Sweden we are fairly good in the mobile space where we talk about mobile and that is that some of the operators just now going to charge extra for voice, not blocking, charging extra for block. We are one of the few countries in Europe where the old incumbent doesn’t have a market dominate position. It is hard to be general because the differences within Europe are big. The differences are between – our countries, there are big differences and we try to analyze what those differences are and how big is the Network, how big is the competition but also what the customer wants. It is very hard to take this as a round board and put it in to a squarish hole.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you very much. I see Amelia and then Jeremie in the queue.

>> AMELIA ANDERSDOTTER: So I think maybe the crucial conflict is where we envisage the choice of how you communicate to the rise. Many of the panelists imagine the choice of communication of something that a user would exercise in their day-to-day lives. Sometimes you use Skype and sometimes all you need is to send a video message. ETNO is a choice you need to make when you make the contract with your service provider. At the time of signing the contract you must know whether or not you are expecting to be streaming videos in the future and if so what qualities. You cannot feel like watching high quality video one day and maybe lower quality video another day.

I very much agree with Jeremie Zimmermann that is actually now a choice for society. We haven’t had the Internet for that long. It is not so strange that we are having these discussions in our society now. It is clear that when something very important happens to society you get these discussions and it takes awhile to mature. And we have to determine is the choice something that you practice only at the signing of the contract with your service provider or something that you can exercise on a daily basis as has been the case so far. I see no sad indication in the regulator to acknowledge this choice. And also, of course, the telecommunications providers and particularly the ones that own a large part of our infrastructure. Do not only do service provisions but also that own the physical layer of infrastructure that we use to forward communication between each other.

They clearly have no interest in having a post-contractual choice. That you make a contract that says that the choice is now continuously yours and they want to limit that.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Jeremie?

>> JEREMIE ZIMMERMANN: Well, I agree with that but I wanted to add, when I hear the gentleman from the Swedish regulator say on one hand I have telecoms industry and on the other hand I have the software industry. I wanted to ask well, isn’t there a thirdhand where there would be the public, the users, the citizens and aren’t these more important in the end, that is industries. And just a few points I wanted to make on that is that I think transparency is not enough. And I think that the competition load is not enough. Competition load is not enough because it has failed in the past with very simple cases. I mean the Microsoft case took ten years for the European Commission to take one decision with the browser while at the same time Microsoft was doing the same with this video player and chat software. And in the meantime April has been doing the same but bundle with the hardware and nothing moves on the competition load and it can only be triggered by industrial actors. And I think the most important actor is the user, the citizen.

So competition load is out of reach for the citizen. And why do you think that transparency fails is first of all, because there is not effective competition. So we have a situation while in France free just arrived, Orange infrastructure but so far we have three operators and there were agreement to have exactly the very same condition, no video, no peer to peer, no whatever news group or things like that. So yes, you have transparency and you have the choice between black and black and black. So this is not enough.

And this would require from the users to be I mean Network engineers. If you read the fine print in the 20-page contract saying oh, and by the way port 25 may be restricted from that time to that time and these type of protocols would not be able to go through. Who would know? I want to recall the example of Netherlands where legislation was adopted to oppose Net Neutrality to operators. It is regulated from an extract of KPN General Assembly where they answered very candidly this question, of course, we use the packet inspection and it will give us so much information about users and get great new business models out of it. This is what triggered the public debate that told Dutch citizens whoa, there is something important here. Maybe we give the occasion to our operators to have too much power over our communications and maybe we need to do something about it.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Yeah. Many important points. I will give you back the floor and then Jean-Jacques.

>> GORAN MARBY: First of all, we have the competition and the second one is the transparency. And I think that everyone agrees on positive. We should give the customers the ability to get what they want in a market and get what they pay for. If that doesn’t work, there is also a third thing and I want to add to that being the regulator is that everyone started in Sweden to sell something, you can only get the car in black. We have a message in place that took care of that law as well. And you have the same thing in France which was part of the telecom package that arrived last year. I can’t remember what is called in English way. That’s a very good saying in English which means that it is more than one regulation that looks in to this whole topic.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Jean-Jacques.

>> JEAN-JACQUES SAHEL: I just wanted to, you know, go and talk about switching briefly because, you know, if this solution Internet neutrality is centred around transparency, then from a policy perspective what that means that users will be informed and therefore be able to work with their feet to switch and affect a positive market outcome. This is the kind of policy equation, if you will. And therefore the ability to switch is key here. Now what is the reality in terms of switching that in quite a few countries in Europe including those that are deemed very competitive, like, for instance, the UK, you have between 20 and 40% people that have not more than one mobile operator to choose from. You have situations where – actually contracts, for instance, are usually a minimum of 12 months. They are quite often 24 months before you switch. Actually it takes time. And then there is, you know, the reality that you have got more and more bundled offers. You have got more and more things that keep you with your provider and that’s not automatically a bad thing. The point is that switching is actually not very easy. And if you look at statistics, actually the level of switching in ISPs including mobile operators is actually reducing from year to year. And also there is a general lack of understanding by consumers about switching. It is more difficult in some countries than others but then an issue of awareness.

There was a report of the Swedish regulator in October of 2010. One of the big findings was that about half of the Swedish consumers either didn’t know that they could switch or didn’t know how to switch. So I still struggle with the – to understand how one can try and solve a major public policy problem with a solution that is focussed around switching when switching remains such a difficult issue. It has actually been a Working Group of BEREC on RG for years. One of the recent BEREC reports which I think was on transparency back in December did say that competition and transparency would need to be part of the solution but that other elements may need to come in.

And I think we should not shy away from using this other elements earlier. I would remember in terms of Internet innovation, you know, waiting a year, waiting two years is an enormous time. You people talk about Twitter. I mean it is a five-year-old company. Facebook is seven years old and Google is 12 years old and we are nine years old. A year for the 95% of IT companies in Europe who are SMEs, it is enough time to go bankrupt if people cannot use their product. So we need to move quickly and transparency would I fear be clearly not enough.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you. Before I give the floor to the questions from the remote participation, there is something important here and it is key questions. We hear the famous cocktail and transparency to switch is not enough. BEREC recognized that specialized services from operators are affecting or threatening the Internet. Should we not actually also monitor the Internet to make sure that the Internet remain and best differ and not become a least differing Internet. I will leave you with this and I will take some questions from the remote participation. Peter, do you have something for us?

>> PETER THORNQVIST: Yes. I have a question not from the hub yet. We are in dialogue but I have a question from the President of the Internet Society-Belgium, Rudy. And his comment –

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Hello Rudy. Nice to have you on board.

>> PETER THORNQVIST: His question I guess is to those of you who answer the general question yes, do we need regulation. So the diversity of the point of view of the panel illustrates the complexity of Net Neutrality and individual views, we have a more complex mechanisms of laws and regulations. Question to you, what kind of regulation are you asking for? Keeping in mind the Internet user consumer is going to be the key of Internet economics and business in the future.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Question to whom? To the panel?

>> PETER THORNQVIST: To the panel but I think mainly to the panelists who answered your net question yes, we need more regulation.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Anyone to take that?

>> First take a look at the Dutch law. I think it is a very good law. And then where to draw the line between what is acceptable and unacceptable at Network management policy as recognized by Jean-Jacques and we can have a wide interpretation of Spam that could be considered security bridge and it is legitimate. And if it is for addressing temporary and unforeseeable congestions which means a burning, a link being cut or something that happens until you repair, then it is legitimate to discriminate. In each and every other case it is not. This would fit in a very simple element to the French telecom law actually.

>> This morning I would recall back in late 2007 the first draft of the revised telecommunications directors by the European Commission had a very interesting principle. It simply said that National Regulatory Authorities in Europe should protect an end user’s ability to access and distribute the content services of their choice. The final version of the directive simply says promote. Which, you know, I don’t think is sufficient but it gives you an idea.

We have got a pretty clear idea of what the right principle is that needs to be protected. And in terms of having different views as a matter of fact that principle which the European Commission drafted is the same principle you find and things like French regulators of 2010 and the FCC’s order of 2010 and the decision on Net Neutrality last year and the UK minister’s free guiding principles. I can go on. It is pretty accepted what a principle is.

So I think that’s important, and not only that but this principle is accepted and supported and promoted and asked for not just by say a big software corporation versus a, you know, telecom operator. It is actually about consumer groups, variety of new and old media providers. You might have read a letter by Swedish publishers broadcasters yesterday that also asked for Internet. It is about a huge array of relevant stakeholders that are asking for this principle to be represented. So I think we are clear on that. It is something that the vast majority of stakeholders want and they know what this principle is. And Larry said it is not in fact, a question of whether we are a regulator but how we regulate.

In a way I don’t know if it is legislation, coregulation, self-regulation or just principles that everyone agrees with as long as they are agreed with and respected and I think we can get there, but we just need a stronger commitment to it and a stronger, you know, signal if you will, by the regulators in particular that not only do they think the open Internet is important but that if the problems that are here persist they will not hesitate to take action and they will do so very soon.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Goran.

>> GORAN MARBY: A couple of points. You mentioned the 2010 report but didn’t mention the last one. We suggested for the Swedish Government to change the law which they are trying to do. The second thing in the BEREC report we said openly which is a strong matter, we believe in an open Internet. We think that’s important. What we are talking about really and if you collectively aggregate 27 regulators, we know one thing about regulation is that every time we interfere in anything with regulation that has an effect and it is hard to tell if we do this what will be the effect. We try to make sure that, first of all, we know where we arrive at the problem because many of the problems that we are talking about could happen but still haven’t really happened which is shown in our BEREC report as well. Most of the operators that have some kind of – it is contractual. At least in my country it is contractual today. There are operators just now saying that they will block. They haven’t done it yet.

So it is also we don’t know the effects of what’s going to happen in the future. And in regulation as we do we don’t want to end up causing a bigger problem than we already have which is very, very important. But I think that everyone – so we talk about, we still have the same aim. From our perspective we often think that giving the ability for a customer to make an educated choice and move away from the operators they don’t have they will create something and we see that all the time.

In Spain when the operators went out and said we will block and operators went out and said we will not block. In the U.S. yesterday they said they will not block. I am not saying this is going to be the way. It is going to be. The business model of the future maybe will be the ones who doesn’t add extra money. For instance, for voice services. Maybe that will be the customer choose them and the problem will go away.

Coming back to the Microsoft discussion, okay, we failed with that one. We did it for ten years and then Google came around and killed off the whole discussion. So competition actually worked, because what happened Microsoft had very strong market share and then Google came around and fixed it. So competition actually in the end fixed this better than the legislation did.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Before you answer, Amelia, you wanted to inject something?

>> AMELIA ANDERSDOTTER: So I think on the topic of regulation it is not only the Netherlands that we have a prior example from, actually there is also a Chilean law. There is ample precedent and Jean-Jacques said there is plenty of documentation from the past. What is needed in the Net Neutrality law I would assume which is not really available in competition is speed of action. The ability to act very quickly on breaches of Net Neutrality because especially in the very fast moving world of information and communication technologies 12 months for switching can actually be already too long. And I think it is naive to believe that the consumers will automatically turn in to this hyperinformed individuals that can always assess exactly what your telecommunication operators are doing.

I know in Italy Telecom Italy changed their contracts and they are filtering when they felt it was convenient and end users don’t have much control over this. And it is difficult to keep up to speed with your contracts because actually as an end consumer also you have many other things to do than read the contracts of all your service providers every day. And I think in this case it is more important we protect the communication than the ability of operators. But like I don’t see the actual shape of the law as anything that would be burdened with great controversies in this case. We already have examples.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you, Amelia. I mean the transparency also means understand the data for end consumers.

>> I am Dida from the DiploFoundation. I can be speaking freely. Back on what Jean-Jacques said on principles, it boils down to how we should regulate. One way is the principles which I as a user support. And the other way what telecoms say; we just serve the free market and the choice will decide. The first one I have problem with calling us consumers. This is not – there is no washing machine Governance Forum. There is an Internet Governance Forum because Internet is not all a product but we are users. Exactly what you said, you are a civil servant. You are not a consumer servant. In a way I expect civil servants to protect my rights of users.

We can discuss whether the telecom authorities are the right ones to do that and you are right, we should just discuss the market. If we go in to what is appropriate and what is inappropriate to management regarding technology or economic roles, probably the best place and not the ministry. The one problem is consumers versus users. The other one is that you mentioned transparency is not enough. Choice is not enough even. Take a look at how hard it is to make a choice to buy a single telephone now. You need a month to analyze. You can analyze it in a second on a website but you need to know all the features. And I really spent a month choosing to buy the phone and I probably made the wrong decision, but choosing a phone is not a big deal. Choosing privacy and security aspects and choosing my rights to access everything on the net requires a lot of time. This can strike back to the telecoms as well if they leave it up to choice. People need to be aware and literate and need to have time.

This is not possible in such crazy speedy times. And if people are not going to be satisfied with the – with what they get they might strike back to telecos or the providers of service and make a revolt and even cause what happened in Netherlands to get it in the law. So probably the midway solution is the principles that we can find the way around together. I would like personally the telecom authorities to be the ones that drive it and not the Governments and business and not civil society and someone in between.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: You have a question?

>> The question is the choice really enough having all of that or maybe the principles is something like a ground for agreement should be what we should go for and that’s back to what Jean-Jacques said.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Anyone?

>> The question is answered already.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thanks for your view. Do we have questions please? This gentleman. Please introduce yourself and then you and then you.

>> My name is Ernoff Stall. Just I do have a question. But also we, of course, as with the Swedish regulator we stand behind the objectives as the European Commission and the BEREC as having the objective to have Net Neutrality. And I have heard in the room here all the panelists do agree of the objective that we should have Net Neutrality. So the dispute is, of course, about what means should we use to achieve that. And, of course, we also support the consumer choice and, of course, to use the competition to achieve that, but in addition, of course, in Norway we also have had this coregulation on the best practices and principles for Net Neutrality which is a voluntary scheme. And, of course, up ’til now we haven’t seen, we do not have filtering and blocking of applications up to now. So that at least one sort of solution that could add.

So what other means, so the question is that is an additional means of achieving the goal, the objective. And to the panelists what other means can we use transparency, consumer choice, other means that we can use to achieve the choice of Net Neutrality.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: We reached a goal. Were you happy with this answer or anybody else could make you more happy than this? I mean anyone to take it? Do we need legislation? Do we need something else or are we just actually following which I feel a good call from – yes.

>> GORAN MARBY: My Dear Norwegian Colleague, there is one additional thing. Everyone talks about transparency as a legal contract. And the new transparency contract in Europe is very much about the word “transparency”. We as regulators are trying to find the best way within BEREC and also within our countries how to make this visible for the consumers or the users, whatever word you want to use when they make their choice. One of them when they make the actual choice going ahead, you buy something now and you think you make an educated guess. And the other part of that we will not leave it open for the operator to change within that scheme. So the customer will know what will happen over the course of the time with the – and that’s an easy balance. We try to say you have a market where you can choose and then you get what you pay for. And the second part is really restrictive. But the whole intention of it is to try to find a way that makes it more transparent for the end user. Not talking about the legal contract. We are talking about actual transparency to make it easy. I wanted to add those as well.

>> JEAN‑JACQUES SAHEL: Something that can help transparency an awareness raising. If we can have the details behind the BEREC report, then we can have third parties actually analyze the data and providing clear and meaningful information to consumers. And I think it would be extremely helpful and I think that most of that data should be transparent by law. It would be extremely helpful to make that available. I hope that we can have that soon. That will really help.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: In one word yes or no.

>> It is not up to me. So it is – it is not up to me. I think there is a representative of the Parliament here somewhere. Hello. Hello.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Okay. Yeah. I see many, many people wanting to say something but we have a priority because we have a hub on the remote participation.

>> PETER THORNQVIST: And it is the Ukrainian that raised this question. It might be restricted by the minister of internal affairs. Do you agree to support the existence of such initiatives by Governments in Europe?

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Did you get – Jeremie?

>> JEREMIE ZIMMERMANN: Can you repeat the question itself?

>> PETER THORNQVIST: The question was about that minister of internal affairs –

>> JEREMIE ZIMMERMANN: This I got. But in the end the question itself.

>> PETER THORNQVIST: Do you support the existence of such initiatives by Governments in Europe.

>> JEREMIE ZIMMERMANN: Yeah, no. Indeed no. I think the Internet shall be unrestricted. Or else it is not the Internet. The Internet definition is a universal architecture and this is what makes it great. The problem is by allowing operators to deploy their infrastructure that is necessary to restrict communication and here Net Neutrality you facilitate the takeover by some Governments some day to use this infrastructure for purpose. It should be put in law as a universal principle, that the Internet should be free and universal period. And whether it is an industrial actor or Governmental actor that bridges this universality I think it is the people, the citizens, the users that lose from it.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Amelia, before I give you the floor I need to look at Jan for housekeeping issues. It is close to 1 or will the line be switched off at 1 or can we continue five minutes? I see many questions but I would like to give people a chance.

>> JAN FLODIN: Go for it.

>> AMELIA ANDERSDOTTER: With Government blocking in general I would agree with Jeremie, but I think what the more important issue in this case very often Governments use blocking of or filtering of information as a means of getting around working with something that actually needs to be worked. And so in Europe we have had many discussions in many European constituencies and also the European level whether to block information about crimes against children, for instance. We have had a lot of discussion about whether to block information about these crimes. We have actually relatively little discussion about what to do about the crimes that are being committed. And I think for Government actors in particular choosing to remove information about something which is – which the Government considers bad, rather than addressing the problem at hand this could very quickly lead to a very, very dangerous consequence. So I would urge policymakers around the world to blocking of information is obviously not even a last resort. You fix the problem or you have a debate about it which is how we normally operate democratically.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you. And then Narine and then Nigel.

>> NARINE KHACHATRYAN: Coming back to transparency I learned in this EuroDIG that 98% of the Swedish population have Internet access but still 1.3 million people do not use Internet because for different reasons. For reasons like they don’t know how to use. They don’t have special capacities. They don’t know do they need the Internet at all. So I need – I mean that when speak about transparency we have to keep in mind and many people will not be able at all to make choices because they don’t have special knowledge and understanding of what they are choosing and what they are changing from what.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Thank you, Narine. Yes, please.

>> Yes, thank you very much. Nigel Hicks and a very interesting panel indeed. And I found the observations very illuminating. We have heard a lot about blocking or filtering or denying VoIP, but I would like to ask you a question on the payments issue. The ability of teleoperators to encourage over the top players to perhaps pay them for types of access and better treatment and do you see a link here between the – do you see a link between this Net Neutrality debate and the debate that ETNO started at the ITU in terms of teleplayers paying over-the-top players? Thank you.

>> DANIEL PATAKI: Thank you very much for your question.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: You should have expected the question.

>> DANIEL PATAKI: That’s why I remained silent because I knew it was coming and if you allow me I have several comments. The first time Net Neutrality was discussed at the first conference was I think in Europe was done by the Danish regulator and it was five years ago and I think you mentioned, Frederic, and I think it is a good thing and it is a good description this is a cocktail. And I have a humble point which is not for the industry but this is for the policymakers. So I think after five, six years we still throw Net Neutrality, things that can be divided and we have a question of blocking. We have on the same play blocking on what are the commercial interests of a software company and blocking – the Government in Ukraine blocking the Internet. And this is a totally different story and this is not helping the debate from beginning and from now on. And then you I wouldn’t say hiding behind, you know, those values, putting a commercial interest, but I think policymakers, all people around this table or whoever would decide Net Neutrality, decide the basic values in Europe. And it should be preserved and whether this is at all in this Net Neutrality debate and second, what Jeremie mentioned, what is privacy and data protection and civil rights on this. But what are the goals and how this is related to this.

And then you arrive because we are – this is all about when we arrive to your question about the business, but on ITU I think I could, and since it is 1 o’clock already I could elaborate a lot mainly on saying what is not there and what has been interpreted what is there. Basically if I want to be short, it is somehow for your question I think the debate in our mind is on one side is whether you could have differentiation in the consumer side. Having different packages, what my colleagues here think that would be detriment to freedom and then on the other side whether, you know, how to solve the asymmetry of the volume put on the traffic from some content providers and how a Network operator could handle this and whether possibility to discuss how this could be solved. And also because that naivety has already been said in this discussion I think we should because it is a little bit high technical debate who pays the bill. Goran said that his mother is paying the same fee but using much less. So she is subsidizing your Internet access. That’s also as you said maybe the users will decide and the society will decide that’s the direction, but then there will be consequences because we live in the real world and we have to think about that. Sorry. It is 10, 15 issues.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: I would have loved to continue this discussion. It is real critical. Unfortunately we won’t have time but indeed this ETNO proposal puzzles many people indeed. It is a long debate. Complex debate.

>> DANIEL PATAKI: If we don’t have time during this year to discuss it –

>> FREDERIC DONCK: I hope we will have time because it is really critical. From a technical community point of view quite a few services. It is actually doesn’t work with the global architecture of the Internet. It is introducing but technology does not allow it. This is where I would like to have an open discussion with ETNO but we won’t have time today.

>> DANIEL PATAKI: Totally another topic.

>> AMELIA ANDERSDOTTER: I have a comment. It is a small comment to what is ETNO and you say who will pay the bill. My office in Strasbourg earlier this week talking about what – they didn’t know what to do with the 9.2 billion Euros that the European Commission has allocated for infrastructural investments. Public has said they will invest a certain amount of money in infrastructure. And you are saying, of course, you can give us cash but we are not going to do anything useful with it, but I am wondering that you are so burdened at peak hours that you find yourself restricting communications.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Yes. I am not sure you want to make an answer but you have 30 seconds and then I give the floor to the last question.

>> DANIEL PATAKI: You can also decide if you are a policymaker. I didn’t point out me whining about money. But I said in the real world it has consequences. And the other point as well you can also have a decision in Europe, in every country whether you want to have a public Network. And then that you have sort of consequences of what we talked about, about Governments.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Yeah, we are opening a new front and again I regret we were not able to address this more thoroughly because there are lots of different questions technically and economically speaking indeed. The last question is yours.

>> Okay. Thank you. I wanted to –

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Please introduce yourself.

>> I wanted to insist on the idea that users and consumers are not the same thing and Freedom of Expression and telecom are not the same thing and should be handled differently and sometimes we mix this a lot in the debate and it gives – it leads to a weird conversation because we are just shouting out different things and that cannot be fixed at the same level but that has been mentioned already. So just highlight it, and then also just from a personal point of view and going to the Human Rights part of the Freedom of Expression part I have to say I do not trust over-the-top players or in fact, any other players or telecom operators. We need to watch out whether we are focusing on the power of one part of the value chain, what they could do and not what they can – not what they are doing or not or where their interests lie, but what they could do with our rights and maybe ignoring what could happen with the rights if they were in the hands of other players. So just to keep that in mind. If we are regulating, we have to regulate all parts of the value chain and not those for whatever reason come to the focus – come under focus and then one extra thing.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: A question?

>> Comment for the table, for the panel, whoever wants to take on that. And that would be the fact that innovation, there has been a lot of talk on innovation. I think we also need to think of how telecom operators can innovate. And that should be part of the discussion, too. So I am not addressing this to anyone in particular. Because I think all the people on the panel are very – are more than capable. So whoever wants to pick up.

>> FREDERIC DONCK: And that would be a nice way to conclude actually. I am afraid we need to close the debate right now. We are really late. I promised you a really lively debate and I guess I am really happy that we are – that all the panelists match this. So it was really an honour to moderate this panel and I would like you to help me in thanking the panel.

(Applause.)