View source for Principles of “network neutrality” and policies for an open Internet – PL 03 2010

30 April 2010 | 11:45-13:00 <br />
[[Programme overview 2010|'''Programme overview 2010''']]<br /><br />

== Session teaser ==
Key issues that could be discussed: What are the arguments for maintaining an open Internet? What are the key principles for equal access and key requirements for maintaining a functional Web? How to define what is (non-)appropriate management of network traffic? From the European perspective, how will the key principles be implemented in reflection to existing regulation frameworks, and what will the implications be? What could be the global impact of European perspectives? What are the emerging challenges: the relation of neutrality principles and mobile internet, social networks, cloud computing and search engines?

== People == 
'''Key Participants'''
* Ivan Brincat, Directorate General for Information Society and the Media, DG INFSO – B.1: Electronic Communications Policy Development (video message)
* Bart Cammaerts, Senior Lecturer, Media & Communication Department, LSE
* Angela Daly, Department of Law, European University Institute Frédéric Donck, ISOC European Regional Bureau
* Anders Johanson, Director Network Security Department, Swedish Regulator PTS
* Steve Jordan, Telefonica
* Franziska Klopfer, Council of Europe
* Ana Olmos, Spanish IGF
* Michael Rotert, EuroISPA/President of ECO, the German ISPA
* Jean-Jacques Sahel, Skype Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs, EMEA
* Andrei Soldatov, Agentura.Ru, Journalist
* Christoph Steck, Telefonica
* Michael Truppe, Federal Chancellery Austria Department for media affairs/information society
* Alejandro Vidal, International Office Telefónica, S. A. Public Policy
* Christopher Wilkinson, ISOC Wallonia

'''Moderator'''
* Vladimir Radunovic, Diplo Foundation

'''Rapporteur'''
* Vladimir Radunovic, DiploFoundation Coordinator, Internet Governance Programmes

'''Remote participation moderator'''

[tbd]

== Key messages ==
The key principles underlying the “open Internet” or “network neutrality” evolve around: (i) no discrimination of traffic based on sender or receiver; (ii) unrestricted user choice and access and use of content, applications and services by consumers – businesses – citizens; (iii) appropriate, reasonable and non-discriminatory traffic management. More certainty is needed on rights and obligations, such as what discrimination entails (it should not be just about anti-competitive actions under strict competition criteria) and how to define ‘reasonable’ traffic management and prioritisation. User-centricity and real user choice and the transparency of business offers were also underlined. Key considerations for the European Commission to consider include: freedom of expression, i.e. no censorship; transparency; investments in open networks and infrastructure competition; fair competition across the value chain; preserving innovation and investment in both networks and services.

== Messages (extended)== 
'''The key principles underlying the “open Internet” or network neutrality concept evolve around'''

* No discrimination of traffic based on sender or receiver
* Unrestricted user choice and access and use of content, applications and services by consumers – businesses – citizens
* Appropriate, reasonable and non-discriminatory traffic management.

Under these principles, more detail would likely be needed to provide all stakeholders with more certainty on their rights and obligations, such as what ‘discrimination’ entails (it should not be just about anti-competitive actions under strict competition criteria); how to define ‘reasonable’ traffic management and prioritisation (also having in mind eventual disaster management), etc.

Although it was felt that user-centricity/real user choice was key in the debate, it was also emphasised as important to ensure that the perspectives of all stakeholders are considered – end-users, B2B, carrier, operators, applications and service providers.

The importance of transparency of business offers was also strongly underlined by several speakers. It would be important to further discuss: what information of interest for stakeholders should be provided, and which are the best ways to truly inform consumers so that they can make informed choices about which access provider and which subscriptions/plans they pay for.

The European Commission calls for public discussion and will issue a consultation on net neutrality by the summer, with a view to report to the European Parliament and European governments by the end of 2010.

'''They key considerations for the Commission will be'''

* Freedom of expression, ie no censorship.
* Transparency.
* Investments in open networks and infrastructure competition.
* Fair competition across the value chain.
* Preserving innovation and investment in both networks and services.

As to whether regulation was needed, many mentioned that the EU already has some provisions in the new telecoms laws around net neutrality – non-discrimination and transparency – and was therefore in a slightly better position than the US. A debate remained opened on the most convenient regulatory approach and legal instruments – if any – in such a dynamic environment. Swedish and Norwegian approaches were mentioned as examples.

Observing the debate from a technical perspective – the need for management – there was a question on whether the bandwidth worries by operators might be short-term predicaments and therefore the discussion should focus on longer term principles for what the Internet should be or remain. The complex economic perspective – creating new business models – was not opened at this time.

The importance of building mutual trust among stakeholders through an open dialogue was emphasised. Generally, it was felt that more work could be done to look at some of the detailed issues, and a multi-stakeholder approach to looking at key issues such as defining reasonable network management (as had been suggested at the 2009 EuroDIG) would be a useful action going forwards, which could be done within the EuroDIG or IGF context perhaps.

The Council of Europe is also finalising a Declaration on Human Rights and Net Neutrality, which has two focal points: (i) proportionality and the necessarily temporary nature of traffic management, and (ii) the enforceability of users’ rights, allowing users to challenge ISPs and obtain redress.

Beside possible multi-stakeholder work on issues of detail, and the forthcoming CoE declaration on NN and Freedom of Expression, and beyond possible regulation, many speakers referred to the need for a common EU/European policy for an open Internet.

== Transcript ==
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''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.''



>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Hello everyone, again. I hope the coffee was refreshing. We are a little bit late. We will be a little bit late for the lunch, and I hope you’ll have patience with us, but we’ll try to make this session before lunch amusing enough and interesting enough so that you stay with us. 

Before we start, there is an announcement, technical announcement, and I will practice for the next EuroDIG in Belgrade how to read practical announcements. It says there will be a session now, starting 12:15, right now, managing privacy risks, managing trusts. This session will address an approach to manage privacy risks in organizations, especially taking into account a global compliance approach, cross-data flow, new models such as cloud computing and their impact on privacy risks. This session will also be presented Hispanic certification for data privacy professionals. Speaker, Carlos Alberto Saiz Pena, is Vice Chair of ISMS Forum Spain, and out of IT Compliance Department of [Speaking Spanish] – I’m not good in Spanish – and Executive Director of ISMS Forum Spain. It is in CD Auditorium and is starting now, so if anyone wants to join that session, you better go. 

And now we are moving into the net neutrality session. There’s been a lot of debate about net neutrality, even in the IGF forum, we had several workshops in the last IGF forums. They were quite constructive. But the fact is that not many people really know what it is about, and I will start with asking you, all of you that you think that you know what it is about, can you please raise your hand? 

>> What is what? 

>> What is network neutrality. Oh, that was a good one. So we have 15 people maybe. That’s a good start. 

(Laughter) 

Did they raise hand? I didn’t watch her. Okay. That’s good. What we are going to do today in this session, we have an hour, so I’ll try to be concise and brief. We’ll firstly try to briefly explain what it is about. We have a short have on that. We’ll go through that, listen to principles that were set up by telecom package and other experience on the European level. We’ll discuss from business user perspective, regulatory perspective, all these principles. And then if we find the same voice, then we’ll probably move on how to implement it and put it into practice, and that’s going to be a challenge. 

Now, I think we can start with this short video, and will I ask for the comments later on. Can you put the video on? I think it should go. 

(Music) 

Just put the voice up, the sound. 

>> The Internet is often referred to as the network of networks, where billions of data packages travel every day through cables to reach worldwide destinations, carrying information from a variety of services of many different types. 

To better understand the nature of the network neutrality challenge, let us use a common analogy, the highway system, and let us go back several decades, when there were only a few basic types of vehicles – that is, data packages – on the roads. 

With the growing number of users and the advances in technology, the traffic continues to grow with many different types of data package showing up, stimulating innovation and creating new opportunities, but also threatening traffic jams with bottlenecks and road congestion. The engineers, with the support of businesses, found a solution by building more and larger roads. However, with more roads, more data packages, including heavy ones and high-priority ones, that need to reach their destination immediately or almost in real-time, culminating in the appearance of huge peer-to-peer data packages, adding to even further congestion and long travel times and delays, what is often called latency. 

Mindful of assuring a good quality of service to all users yet not seeing incentives to build even more roads, the road keepers – Internet service providers – have decided to introduce network management to prioritize traffic. 

Prioritizing data packages does improve the traffic flow, assure the quality of service, but it also raises concerns among the users. What if Internet service providers decide to prioritize certain data packages for their own interests, thus introducing anti-competitive practices? What if the end users are suddenly banned from accessing certain content, services, or applications? What if the providers limit the consumers’ choices and only provide access to certain offers? For an open Internet, users should have the right to access the content, services, and applications of their choice. 

How to establish key principles for equal access and key requirements for maintaining a functional net? Network management might be appropriate for assuring a good quality of service or assuring the security of the network. Is network management also appropriate for fighting illegal or objectionable content? Or for creating new economic models that would encourage investments and lower prices while not endangering access and innovation? 

To ensure that management practices are appropriate, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory, certain principles for network neutrality should be considered. Transparency regarding the capacity, the quality, and the terms and practices for a service offered. No discrimination based on the sender or receiver of information. Unrestricted access to content and its use. And services, applications, hardware, and software of users’ choice. 

To define and implement cooperatively the principles of network neutrality, an open, multistakeholder dialogue is needed, allowing regulators to only act as safeguards. 

(Music) 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. That was an introduction. On this side of the table, we have three distinguished guests, but we have many more over there. We have Michael Rotert, spokesman of EuroISPA, European ISP Association, and president of ECO, German ISPA; Frederic Donck, ISOC European Bureau; and Michael Truppe, Federal Chancellery of Austria. I read not to make a mistake. 

We’ll not take the floor too much. We will jump from here to there and back. Very briefly comment on this introduction. Was it okay? Was anything missing? Two words. Michael. 

>> MICHAEL ROTERT: It showed the view of net neutrality from an end user point so far I could watch it, but there are several other views. You have the B2B communication view on net neutrality, you have the carrier view on net neutrality. And you have the view of applications and services. And I could see it tried to cover it, but the movement, it was not very distinct, so it appeared to me as being only the end user view on net neutrality. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Next, Frederic. 

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Certainly a good start. Even if I don’t like the word net neutrality, it encompasses so many issues, I would use other words later, but I like the user centricity that was being explained in this little movie. I haven’t seen a principle as openness. Those are the ones that really allow the Internet to become and stay what it is today. So there are certainly some additional stuff to mention. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thanks. Michael – another Michael. I would share your view that it is very important in this context, especially as we are all talking about human rights, namely the right to receive and impart information where net neutrality plays a very important role. 

What I missed a little bit in this video – I would come back to that later – is the question what conditions do apply in the narrow sense apart from the overall transparency, and what was missing a little bit too is how do you enforce those principles?

But I’ll come back to that later. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Problems, this is easy to explain, it gives a bit more light on what net neutrality is about, at least. There are many more issues. 

Now we are going to focus on the principles. So what are the principles of net neutrality, and where do we find the way to implement what we are talking about? 

Now, unfortunately, we don’t have a guest from European Commission, but fortunately, we do have their short video, which is showing the position of European Commission regarding net neutrality incorporated into the telecom package. That’s a good start to discuss net neutrality issues in Europe and to see what are the reflections from different stakeholders on that. So can you put another video? Ivan Brincat from European Commission. 

>> IVAN BRINCAT: I’m Ivan Brincat. I work in Digital Information Society dealing on net neutrality issues. I apologize for not being with you today, but still I want to present the Commission’s views on the subject. 

As you know, net neutrality is a subject that stirs a lot of emotions. Every person I speak to has an opinion on the subject. Everyone interprets it in a different manner. 

The Commission declared, when the telecoms reform package went through last year, that it would look into the subject and report to the European Parliament and to the European council by the end of this year. 

Commissioner Kroes, earlier this month, said she intended to hold a public consultation before summer to be able to discuss the issues and to give all stakeholders the opportunity to air their views and to tell the Commission what their views are on the subject. 

In principle, we will be very open in our views with the first approach being that we give a lot of importance to what is already there in the electronic communications framework, which is, in particular, the issue of transparency and quality of service for consumers. 

In general, I will stress that the Commissioner said she will look at five major principles for addressing the issue when she assesses the responses to the consultation. The first one is fundamental. It is freedom of expression, which is very, very clear. We want the Internet to remain open and for everyone to be able to express their views clearly and for there to be no censorship. 

The second point, which is different than the framework, is transparency, and there we think it is crucial for operators to inform their customers on any issue that emerges which relates to any form of traffic management that takes place. And we think that this issue is fundamental, so we would give this a lot of importance. 

We want telecom operators, we want innovators to be able to continue to invest and to reap the fruits of that investment. 

Fourth principle we will look at is the principle of competition. We want to ensure that all players have – in the value chain will have the opportunity to make profit and to generate new services, new applications for their clients. And in this regard, we will give full support for innovation. We will not be favoring any business model. We want innovation not only in terms of the networks, but also in terms of the services that are on and the business models that could emerge in the future. 

Obviously, there are considerable choices to be made. For example, prioritization, what level of transparency, do we promote infrastructure competition versus light-touch net neutrality regulation? These are all issues which we’ll be looking at in the public consultation. 

So I would urge you to discuss the matter today and also to give us important feedback when the public consultation is launched. Thank you. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Frederic, are you satisfied with this? Is it what the users want? 

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Well, you want me to react to what the Commission just said or – 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: This approach to principles, are these the principles that users would be satisfied with? Is this what users could say this is network neutrality, we’ll be happy with this? 

>> FREDERIC DONCK: There is certainly convergence with all concerned. I would sum up from the user perspective, that would be certainly transparency, and that’s been said for sure. Choice, that is essential for users to be able to choose what kind of service he wants at every moment, and of course, it implies that there is competition so he can make a real choice. And then access, access to whatever he wants. 

And again, if I would come back to the overriding principle of the Internet, I would again say openness underpins all three principles, so definitely access, choice, and transparency to us are key when it’s about those discussions. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. We have a guest from Telefonica as well, Steve Jordan. We have been discussing this issue, and this is – I think we can all agree transparency’s important. What does it mean? You are Telefonica. You are someone who is providing services to offer to users. When they want to be transparent, what is it that you’re offering them? Microphones, please. The moving ones. So why I ask this? Because we always say what is appropriate management? We need transparency. We need to be transparent. What does it mean? We’ll see later on what the users want, we’ll see that from you, but what do providers want to offer? 

>> STEVE JORDAN: Well, interestingly, we take the view that you have to look at this from the user’s point of view because today, we certainly fully support transparency, but how do you communicate to a customer the quite complex things that you might be doing to manage the service? They don’t really want to know about that. They want to understand it, to be able to make choices. And at the moment, the way that that tends to be done is to say to customers this service will work or this service might be managed, so a kind of service description way of service by service in some cases saying if you pay this, you can have this type of service, and if you pay something else, you will have a different range of services because they are managed, perhaps, in different ways. 

The problem with that is, really, it’s a very static way of doing that. It describes the overall service that you’re providing in terms of a list of services. Those services change. New services are invented and introduced. So I think we think there needs to be some considerable discussion about how to implement transparency from a totally customer-friendly point of view because if they don’t understand what you’re doing, then they can’t make the choices, and they need to be able to make sensible choices between different products that you will want to offer them. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Thank you. Christopher Wilkinson. Can we give you a microphone to – just to hear from you what do you think? Christopher Wilkinson is also, can I say, an ISOC person, but what do you say about – will you be satisfied with having this as transparency? Is this transparency? What do you need? 

>> CHRISTOPHER WILKINSON: I think – thank you. Christopher Wilkinson. Well, first of all, Ivan and Frederic have already said what the main principles ought to be, and I’m very pleased that this is coming out this way. 

My main additional concern is the risk, is the economic consequence of different forms of traffic management providing counterproductive incentives. Nearly all our Member States now have a very active policy of extending broadband access to the general public as widely and as quickly as possible. 

Some traffic management is necessary, and certainly in emergency situations, the capacity to handle the problem has to be there. But I would start to be concerned if operators felt that technologies of traffic management were providing the opportunity to, in effect, delay improving the necessary improvements in bandwidth 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Does it mean that you would not like to have any kind of a traffic slow-down or – the microphone has gone back, but – please. So the question is do you think that, then, you should be able to access each and every content equally whatever you want, Google, Facebook, whatever you want? 

>> CHRISTOPHER WILKINSON: I think you should, particularly as you pay the operator, the service provider, a monthly fee, sometimes quite expensive, depending on the country and the bandwidth that you’re being offered. And I would be concerned if discrimination between different kinds of traffic was economically motivated. 

The openness of the Internet is a marvelous thing. Everybody who has experienced it quickly has found that it’s an enormous advantage for many aspects of everyday life. And I would be eager to ensure that that continues to be the case across the whole of the population and at affordable prices. And I think technically it’s possible. 

The problems that we have, for example, in parts of Spain that I live in, the local bandwidth is inadequate. But when you do get basic broadband access, with the exception of emergencies and with the enormous storms we had this winter, there were a few emergencies, and the Internet went down. But that’s exceptional. When you have a decent bandwidth available to you, you can use the whole of the Internet, and we should be careful to ensure that that continues to be the primary criterion and that the operators should be discouraged from creating islands – whether they’re technical, economic, or based on different standards, creating islands of the Internet within the global Internet. 

That is a path that, for economic and, in some parts of the world, political reasons we should eschew. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: It is an important thing that you mentioned, it is a political perspective also. So if there is a management of data packages and it has to be done for political reasons. Emails can be a little bit late, that can be misused – and that’s probably the concern of the users – it can be misused for either competition reasons, it can be misused for political reasons, ideological reasons, so it doesn’t have to be really for technological reasons, and that’s why this transparency is that important. 

But later on we’ll see that we also need to pay for that Internet if we want to have it on a good level. Annette Muhlberg, you wanted to comment? 

>> Vladimir, what you just mentioned, I think this is crucial to say it can be misused for different reasons. I wanted to react to Christopher and say that it’s a really dangerous argument to say, oh, we’re actually paying for this, so we have the right for blah, blah, blah. It is dangerous because the business model can shift, and then you have maybe even a free service, and you have a limited access to I don’t know what, and because it pays off for the business to say, okay, you just have access to this or you have a sort of priority access to this and that, and maybe you don’t even have to pay anymore, but you’re obliged to enter this, and you have a very slow or maybe even none, no service on certain other things. 

For example, what you just said, you have certain films, but not this. You have certain social groups, meetings, just access here, this is free, and there’s a lot of advertisement, so it pays off the provider. So you have to be really careful about the argument, oh, I am paying and this is why it has to be neutral. It’s just the opposite. The business model can be the opposite, so I think it makes more sense to stick to the principle arguments of saying it can be misused. It is for political reasons, and this is why we should have net neutrality. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: So okay. Let’s just hear from Frederic the response, then we’ll go back there, then to the panel. 

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Yeah, thank you. Maybe let’s step back a little bit because I believe we should be careful not to confuse or mix the different levels of understanding here in the debate between principles, between technicalities, and between business models. 

When it’s about network management, I believe that we all recognize that network management might be necessary just to organize a smooth operating services for quality and for innovation. What we’re saying is it very much depends and we urge policymakers to consider this in which environment it’s being done, and the environment here is important, and Internet access should be characterized by access, and providing that the user still has control of his data and can access the Internet he wants, network management should be possible in those conditions. 

So and then there is another layer of discussion which are the different business models, and indeed, we are – today we can see different business models in place. Christopher mentioned some of those. But that’s another discussion, I would say. 

Again, I would insist on which environment we’re talking about, and again, the ID that network neutrality, to use that word, would claim that all packets are treated equally. This is not true. Just for voice over IP or some streaming, you need different packages, and there are mechanisms that allow for this. But again, I also hear say we should not overestimate the level of streaming that is necessary. I was told in the U.S. a few years ago – last year, actually – 80% of video were recorded, which does not mean video streaming. So let’s be careful, actually, when we use those different levels of discussion. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Can I get one more over there? And then we’ll move on to the commercial aspects as well. 

>> Thank you very much. Perhaps I make now things even more difficult, but in my opinion, we should not remain at the question net neutrality, yes or no. Certainly payment is not a factor as such. However, we do have capacity restrictions, at least under certain circumstances. 

Maybe I was unfortunate living in Hong Kong when there was an earthquake near Taiwan, maybe I was unfortunately living in Egypt and there was a problem with Internet access due to a technical question north of Egypt, and then it is, of course, important to know what kind of priority rules would apply. So I would somehow advocate to enlarge the whole discussion and also to look into the questions of priority rules. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. So we have mentioned different misuses, but then we are back to what, Michael, you mentioned in the first instance, which he is we haven’t mentioned in the video the commercial models and the commercial aspects and business aspects. 

>> MICHAEL ROTERT: Well, I first can totally follow what you said, and when I follow this discussion here, it’s – I try to make it clear with my beginning for the different views. We’re talking about two layers, and the major problem is that, for instance, companies like Telefonica are covering or most of the companies are covering the two layers. 

In the video also from the European Commission, they did not talk about ISPs. They talked about operators. And when I hear operators, I mean only the bandwidth management, and this may cover – or was also said from the auditorium. Net neutrality, from the ISP view, is something totally different because that’s much more related to content. And then it comes to the mixture of both on what is discussed internationally if someone puts a lot of content in, has this company then to pay extra to the bandwidth provider or to the carrier? 

And we have to concentrate here on a level talking about network neutrality, and I think in terms of the user best would be to concentrate on the content because that covers the ISP. Everything else would cover the operator or the network management or the bandwidth or the cables or whatever transport you need. 

I looked at the Wikipedia on what they say on net neutrality. They call it network neutrality and also net neutrality, Internet neutrality. As a principle proposed for user access network participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers or governments on content, size, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communications allowed as well as communications that is – communication that is not unreasonably degraded by other traffic. Which means they do not refer to bandwidth. So please, let’s stick to the content part and not going on the bandwidth side. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Thank you. We have a question from remote, I think. Jean-Jaques. Jean-Jaques is our colleague from Skype. We have our online product provider, let’s put it that way, who is also going to help us with reporting later on. But we have a question from a remote space and then a short wrap-up, then we’ll make something special. 

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: So we have actually a number of questions coming from people in Europe, but also Georgia and all the way from Brazil as well. And the questions are mainly about the user viewpoint. There’s a lot of questions that come in that say how do we ensure that we have principles in place that guarantee net neutrality, depending on how exactly you call that notion, how you define it, but are guaranteed from a user viewpoint? 

There are a lot of people saying we are hearing this from a telecoms perspective, not a user perspective, so how do we ensure we really have the user in mind when we apply those principles? 

And related to that, a lot of questions from both within Europe and outside Europe are do we actually need regulation to guarantee those principles and to enforce them? And if so, how should it happen? And I think it’s interesting to see from Europeans, who have just heard from the Commission, there doesn’t seem to be an understanding that European regulations are, as they stand, enough to protect net neutrality. So if you could comment on that, then we’ll do a quick summary of where we’re at before we move on. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: A comment on how to proceed towards revelation or how to – 

>> Both on the user viewpoint perspective versus the telecoms viewpoint, then the need, desirability, and enforceability on net neutrality. 

>> So the second one keep after the wrap-up. That’s the second part. But the first one, yes. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Anyone? Very shortly. 

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Okay. Those are good points. Let’s see, as a good policymaker, she starts seeing which principles she would follow to regulate or not or to do something in this field. So we believe, indeed, from user perspective, that we should all agree on those key principles. 

And why do we promote those principles? Just not for the sake of openness, but just because Internet has been built and has the success we know today because of openness, because of a decentralized approach, because of a multistakeholder approach. So we firmly believe that those principles that are just – helped create should stay wherever – wherever we go, actually, and again, we believe that openness and then show transparency and access should be the key principles when it’s about policy, and we urge policymakers to consider that before doing anything. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Michael, and then – 

>> MICHAEL ROTERT: I can answer from Brazil. Brazil has its own principles negotiated in 2009 between the various stakeholders, and it says about net neutrality, traffic privileges must meet technical criteria only, excluding any political, commercial, religious, and cultural factors or any other form of discrimination of preferential treatment. That’s one part of the Internet governance topics from Brazil. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Good. Okay. We’ll move – definitely, that’s the second part on the level between self-regulation or market regulation and overregulation and where is the limit and who does what. Michael, you wanted to add something? 

>> MICHAEL TRUPPE: Thanks. Just one second. I think once we are ahead of the step of defining the principles, it’s more a question of where do you want to see them implemented? And I think it was already mentioned yesterday that it’s not only the business side, but it’s also the creation of a regulatory framework that enables these principles to be followed by all actors. And this is not a question of regulating an individual but just to have the relevant legal framework in place that creates such an environment that would respect the freedoms of all actors with respect to the right to receive and impart information. 

So it’s more a question of, okay, first step, agree on the principles, and then see how they could be implemented in business models in the regulatory frameworks and in, to the last extent, also in court orders with regard to the legitimacy of certain issues. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Okay. Thank you. Bernard? We have an advanced remote question. This is trying to do the most from the remote participation. We’re going to Venezuela. Ginger Puck. Ginger, can you hear us? Can you see us? We see you. You’re confused. It’s too early in Venezuela still. Voice? Sound? 

(Static) 

Ginger? She is talking. Ginger, maybe you can be writing until we make the sound – (Laughter). Yeah, but she obviously hears us. Should we move one question forward? Okay. Thomas wanted – until we make voice back, and we’ll look at Ginger. Thomas. 

>> Okay. Now it’s working. Thank you. I have missed the first part of this session, so I don’t know whether this has already been covered, but listening to what you have said about the different layers of where net neutrality is an issue or should be an issue, you have the content layer, then you have the service providers and the bandwidth layer, and there’s another layer, I don’t know whether you discussed this, I just want to raise this issue, is the hardware layer, actually. 

If you take the example of I want to buy an iPhone, and maybe in my country there’s only one telecom provider who has contracts to sell iPhones, but this telecom provider does not allow me to use Skype or other services, do you think this is also an issue of network neutrality, or is this rather something that is competition law and vertical separation? What do you think about the hardware component that is – all software and hardware. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: It is definitely a good question whether network neutrality goes only for – there’s a gentleman over there – goes only for Internet service providers, telecom providers, or does it go further to service providers? 

We can imagine maybe in some years that Facebook or some of the other services will become maybe equally publicly important space as Internet is now, so – a subspace. So what if they continue limiting service to someone with advertisements, with whatever? So we don’t have to stick only to Internet service providers and telecom providers, but generally business on the Internet. We have a question over there. 

>> Well, I have a comment. I’m Anders Johanson from the Swedish telecom regulator, and we launched five months ago a report on open networks and services, including network neutrality. 

In this report, we elaborate and clarify the challenges we see by using five different levels in the value chain from, for instance, spectrum management to dock cables, dock fiber cables, and to content. And we came up with three main conclusions in this study. And I can also mention that this report is published on the EuroDIG website as well as a management summary. 

The main conclusions we have in the report, number one, openness creates opportunities for innovation and competitiveness but must be balanced against other interests worthy of protection, such as investment incentives and network security. 

Number two, openness is secured by ensuring nonsanctioning and competition. 

And number three, it is crucial that providers are clear about looking periods, restrictions to Internet access, and the accessibility of services when they market their services and in their agreements with customers. 

So these three objectives or conclusions are discussed in quite detail throughout this report in the nearly 200 pages. Thank you. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. I just want to mention that when you go to EuroDIG website on this part of the website which concerns this plenary, you’ll find a set of links, among which is also the link to the document from Sweden, also the Norwegian Principles, the messages from Geneva last year, and many other links that might be useful for further references. 

Do we have Ginger back? Let’s try to. Ginger, can you hear us? I think we hear you with a bit of noise. And I hear myself. 

>> Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Yes, yes. 

>> Can you hear me now? 

>> We hear you. 

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: Okay. Here we go. From Venezuela, hello, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity. Thanking the speaker who brought net neutrality to the question of principles, I would like to reiterate that as users, we know that we must pay for our services, that there must be efficient management to adjust critical agency and bandwidth use. But we also need to know are you filtering, are you slowing, are you carrying on behind-the-curtain violation of neutrality in the name of network management? We need to have openness and transparency of the policies you use to manage that bandwidth. Thank you. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you, Ginger. That was short and sweet. I’ll give the microphone to Jean-Jaques. You have it. It should be working. Does it work? 

>> JEAN-JAQUES SAHEL: Yes. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: A short wrap-up. 

>> JEAN-JAQUES SAHEL: It has to be short. My time is short. Time is a limited resource, and it’s congested. We’ve been talking a lot. So I will just do a little game and give you not my definition of neutrality, but my experience of net neutrality working at Skype and how it applies to Skype. 

I’m supposed to wrap up what has been said in the last 45 minutes, but my network, my Tim is congested. I don’t have much time. I’ve got three minutes to wrap up all this, so I will decide that I don’t like what Michael has said. Sorry, Michael. So I won’t even – sorry. I won’t repeat what you said. 

Mr. Truppe, I like what you said, but you know, I don’t have much time. Can you please give me five euros for the pleasure of repeating what you just said? 

And then for Philippe, you’re all right. I won’t ask you to pay. But all of you in the room, I know you’ve already registered to attend this conference; therefore, you have paid by traveling here and registering. You have already committed to accessing this conference room. However, if you want to listen to ISOC – because, actually, I’m a member of the ISOC as well, so they kind of do the same thing as me – so really, if you want to listen to them, will I ask you to pay Mr. extra, five euros a month if you want to listen to what ISOC has to say. 

That’s my reality of net neutrality. That is what is happening to Skype users every day throughout user. Either they are prohibited from accessing and using Skype, especially on the mobile, or we have people turning around to us and to other online content providers and asking them to – asking them to pay if we want users to be able to access our content, or users are being asked to pay sometimes prohibitive costs on top of their existing Internet access payments in order to use VoIP. 

This is outrageous. That’s the reality of net neutrality. That’s what it actually means in practice, a breach and abuse of net neutrality. It’s exactly that. It’s truncating what the Internet is about. So that’s my own little rant. 

(Laughter) 

But now I haven’t been paid to do this, but I will still do a quick wrap-up as much as I can. 

I think what we heard in the opening video I think was quite helpful because what we really need to hone in on is what we need by net neutrality, and I think Frederic was aiming to mention – I think you probably referred to the open Internet rather than net neutrality. I think it’s a useful term. 

What we’ve heard around principles in the Diplo video is around appropriate, reasonable, nondiscriminatory traffic management. Clearly a lot of detail has to come out of what we actually mean by nondiscriminatory. That’s probably further work to be done here, maybe as part of a multistakeholder dialogue, which is the idea that has been floated. 

We heard about non – no discrimination based on sender or receiver. We heard about unrestricted access and use by consumers. And we heard about the possibility of a multistakeholder dialogue. 

Other principles we heard were around what the European Commission was mentioning, five major principles, freedom of expression, no censorship first, transparency second, innovation and the ability for people to bring their products online freely. We heard about competition across the value chain and balancing that with the need to invest in networks and making sure the networks can keep the traffic. 

>> Three minutes over. Five euro, please. 

>> JEAN-JAQUES SAHEL: Yeah, so I will censor everything else because we don’t have time. I think those are the main principles, and I think some of the questions coming now from the audience worldwide is really about is the European regulation that is already in place enough? Does it need to be clarified? Or do we need further regulation to ensure that neutrality, especially from a user viewpoint? And others elsewhere beyond Europe are asking do we also need specific net neutrality regulations, so I guess we’re moving on to that part of the debate. Thank you. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thanks. I think you haven’t used the other three minutes. Chris from Telefonica. Two questions for you. First one, can I use Skype if I am your user on a mobile phone, and second, do we need legislation for this? What type of regulation do we need? Do we need regulation on this? 

>> Well, first of all, way have to say, the summary showed us that, I think, in the end, one very important issue is that we don’t have any anti-competitive behavior when we do any form of discrimination of messages or information. So I think this is the core of what we’re discussing here, and I feel there’s a lot of mistrust and – you know, towards operators and towards maybe ISPs as well that, you know, management will be used in a way which is not in favor of the consumer and of the end customers. I think Steve has pointed out earlier that we are not on that page. 

And going back to your question directly, we are not blocking Skype. I mean, you know that. We’re not doing it. So even on our networks which are limited in that capacity, as you know as well, I mean, this is not happening. It’s not happening everywhere. 

So I think in the end the answer to a lot of these questions will be competitive offers for customers who can then pick and choose what they want, and we need transparency to make them aware of the choices they have, and I think this needs to be done in a better way, maybe, than we did up till now. But I think therefore, up to the point, for the point being regulation, anti-regulation, for a problem which is basically in a constant development as the whole Internet sphere and the whole value chains of the Internet and all that is not necessary. I mean, that would be our position. 

We have enough supervision on this issue by the European authorities, as we have seen. They are going to be a consultation. They are going to be in sufficient kind of information around this issue, and I’m quite content, I think, that in the end, we’ll see that normal competition or measures will be sufficient to deal with this problem because there will be competition between different operators, different offers and customers offers. 

But as I say, this is a he have fast-developing area. I don’t think it’s right to intervene with the regulation in such a fast-developing area as the Internet. And we haven’t entered the business models because this is another debate, maybe, but I just want to stress finally that we are not opposing in any way the access to any content or any service or any device. I mean, all devices should be kind of connected as well and should be interoperable, and I think that was a very important issue mentioned earlier, that the focus on purely the network is maybe, in today’s world, not sufficient. We have other limitations we see in the area of the ICT sector and the Internet. 

So sorry. I hope that was a little bit – don’t know if it was too long, but I mean, just going back to the point, please don’t be too anticompetitive here. Thanks. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. You raised a very important issue, which is trust, and it really seemed at the beginning, when we started discussing net neutrality some year, two, three, four ago, there was a lot of mistrust, a lot of “we” and “they.” And it’s still present. But from our discussions here, I think we are moving quite well, and you mentioned that almost everything that was in the principles that we’ve been discussing is that you also agree as a provider that there should be access to content, there should not be discrimination, so on and so forth. 

So I think we are coming to a similar line when it comes to principles, but I don’t know if you are coming on the same line when it comes to the way to regulate. And Angela Daly is from the European University Institute; right? And she is quite into the question of the market, self-regulation and law, and what do you think? 

>> ANGELA DALY: Thank you very much. I just – I can’t seem to get – I would just like to say that I don’t really see the imperative for no net neutral behavior by ISPs beyond assuring some sort of minimum or quality levels or smooth operating. I think the ISPs’ arguments beyond that just seem to be them wanting to make more money out of users. 

I also think there’s a real danger about opening up more digital divides with this idea of access tiering. So even if ISPs are not going to block content per se, you may get access to more content or less commercially lucrative content only if you pay more money. 

I think that so far, the relatively low cost of receiving and creating information on the Internet has been a good change for consumers and users from the broadcasting and print media models. And a lack of net neutrality enacted principles actually prejudices this, and particularly this idea of blocking or restricting content, especially that which is not so commercially lucrative, is quite worrying to me. 

In addition, we have seen some non-net-neutral behavior in the developed world, so not just in developing and authoritarian regimes, as being anticompetitive and for ideological reasons. For instance, in Canada, one of the major telecoms operators blocked access to the website of one of the telecommunications workers unions and for its subscribers when there was a union dispute. So this has happened already, and without net neutrality principles, it could very well happen again. 

On this idea of regulation, specifically in Europe, I would say yes, we do need regulation. The competition law regulation we have at European level is generally an ex-post system, so there would have sob some sort of anti – to be some sort of anticompetitive abuse or the merger control, and there would have to be some proposed merger for that actually to come into play, and even the protection offered usually by the European Convention on Human Rights vis-a-vis freedom of expression is mostly an ex post system as well. So to actually guarantee net neutrality and net neutral principles, I think we do need some form of formal regulation. Thank you. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Michael Rotert, would you like to comment on regulation? 

>> MICHAEL ROTERT: I’m totally in line with Ms. Koes when she said on April 13th we must also avoid overhasty regulatory interventions, and I’m not so sure that we really need regulations. 

Coming back on with a Thomas asked, I mean, with a special device connected, I don’t know if this is hardware or software, and if this has to be regulated, I’m in the same position in Germany dealing with Dutch telecom and the iPhone, so it’s a similar problem. 

I don’t think that on the midterm there has to be any regulation because the market can decide this on its own. When I have the possibility to switch to a provider which gives me the freedom, I will switch. If I don’t have the possibility, then it becomes critical, and then I think there is intervention needed but not overhasty. Thank you. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. There was – when we had – at the IGF, there was a director, I think, of – telecom, and he was addressing this issue of regulation and overregulation. And he said in no way – there was a huge dialogue, open dialogue between different stakeholders on network neutrality principles. They came up to certain principles which you can also find on the Web. 

But then we asked how are you going to enforce that, and he said, well, listen, they were all in the process. They feel the ownership of the process. And they know that they should go along with what we agreed. And they know that if they don’t go along, this can become a law. 

So this is a kind of a stick, so think about it. 

But Bart is here also. You can also reflect this – from London school of economics, if I’m not wrong. 

>> BART CAMMAERTS: Bart Cammaerts from London School of Economics. I’m not a legal expert but more on the political side. Of course, it’s not really surprising that the industry doesn’t want to be regulated. But if you look at net neutrality, some say that it’s kind of the Internet’s first amendment, and in many ways, if you look at freedom of speech or freedom of expression, that is also legally protected in constitutions in democracies. So why not protect this legally as well? How to do this I don’t know, but often if you look at the literature –

Leads to nonregulation, and often to avoid states and political intervention and basically for states to do what they want. 

I think this issue is too important, and that’s why I also endorse a strong touch regulation in this regard. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Bertrant. 

>> Thank you. From the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I want to inject one element in the debate about regulation. In many cases, companies and other actors are confronted with one attention between the short-term and the long-term, where the interest in the short-term might be contradictory with the interest in the long-term or there is an adaptation pass. 

There was a wonderful seminar in Oslo about last year that dealt with net neutrality that showed that one of the elements that is bringing this tension is the different rate of growth of bandwidth consumption with the development of the infrastructure, the fact that video has exploded is actually clogging the existing arteries while, at the same time, we see a decrease in the price of equipment, of the capacity of fibers and all transmissions, that make it likely that in a relatively acceptable period of time, the question of bandwidth will be overcome. 

So one question here is is the debate about renouncing net work neutrality just a transitional debate or not? Is there a tension between short-term and long-term? That’s the first point. 

The second point is a question of gain theory. There is a debate about what is called prisoner’s dilemma situations, where you know you are doing something that might be harmful if everybody does it, but if you don’t do it, if you behave correctly and all the others are behaving noncorrectly, then you are the one harmed. Which means that there is the tension between competitors, but there are also questions where they need to synchronize their anticipation of the future. 

So of course there’s regulation. I don’t know if I’m absolutely clear, but I want to elaborate the argue and throw it. There’s regulation. There is self-regulation, there can be coregulation, regimes that are regulated. 

The thing that is missing and the things that governance forums like EuroDIG and the Internet governance forum can help bring is a common picture and an in-depth discussion by all the different stakeholders on what is the objective that they want to collectively achieve? How can you balance or make a simultaneous choice to overcome the bandwidth clogging, to overcome the fight between those who provide voice over IP and traditional telecommunications on before trying to find solutions, before trying to find the regulatory regime. An in-depth discussion on formulating the common concern, which is how do you upgrade the infrastructure to continue to guarantee all the current benefits as needed? And I think the EuroDIG and all the IGF spaces need to promote this discussion among the actors on what are the common objectives so that they can synchronize the short-term and the long-term interests and without going into the antitrust behavior or collusion behavior between operators. 

The discussions between competitors with their own customers and so on is probably need sod that they have a common picture of how the network is going to evolve, what kind of investment and what kind of needs and so on. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you, Bertrand. Very good question. I think we basically can divide the reason behind network management into technical and probably economic one. Technical one is a bandwidth, and it’s not only bad width, it’s also latency and routing; right? There was a good text in economics that the problem with speed is to a logic stand about routing and computers, routers. 

But there is another question. If we overcome that, as you said, are we still going to have the question of network management? Or maybe we will if the economic models are different. I don’t know. But I would leave a final comment from Telefonica here, and then we’ll get back over there. Uh-huh. We have a question. But we have to hurry up. I guess you’re hungry. 

>> Just following on, actually, from that point, I think there’s a couple of things that we tend to do, which are we talk about the Internet in a way which makes it sound very simple, and we talk about it as though it’s stable. And basically, the Internet model and the business model surrounding it are very dynamic. The technology is dynamic. And in that circumstance, it’s a very uncertain thing to think about regulation. 

Regulation in dynamic environments can be very restrictive and, in fact, stops them from developing. And looking at it, it’s not the time to add further regulation – because there is regulation at the moment – onto something that’s as dynamic and changing as the Internet is. 

And just to finalize that, the comment about analogies and you know, we talked about the road as an analogy for how traffic management is needed. What you don’t have on the road, though, is a situation which you have on networks with 140-character tweet also going on the same piece of road as something that’s a 5-megabit HD video stream. You don’t see that on roads, those things happening. So you need to be more careful. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. We have another question just behind, and then – over there. Yes, the analogies are quite often misleading, so that can be a problem. Please. 

>> – cyber rights Turkey branch. My question is short. Could we mention any differences between the approaches of the United States – I mean, American way of network neutrality and European way of net neutrality? Thanks. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Jean-Jaques, would you like to your final or would you like to edit at the end? Then I will give it for them for the final comment, and we’ll wrap it up. Okay. So let me go – I will leave it for you for the end. Jean-Jaques, can you post your comment now? 

>> JEAN-JAQUES SAHEL: Okay. Just there’s a question about U.S. versus UN. I hope the panel can comment on that as well. There’s a lot of comments here about both transparency and self-regulation. 

As a lot of us can see on the screen, one of the comments was posted saying self-regulation can be less transparent than any other form of regulation. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing. I’m just quoting that. I think it’s quite interesting. 

What I haven’t got a sense of from either the audience here in Madrid or on screen is whether we have got any real agreement as to whether we need regulation or not regulation. 

What I’d just say is in the EU, we have certain aspects of the latest telecoms regulation that look at net neutrality, but I still think that we’re probably not as precise as one might like or it might not give us the certainty that we know exactly what they mean and how they’re going to be enforced or looked at by regulators. That may be something the panelists can look at what they think the next steps are, what is needed, and what are the mechanisms on that. 

Maybe from my experience and from hearing the speaker from a PTS talk about the report on openness that PTS did – and it was, indeed, a very impressive report. My Swedish is not very good, but I got a fairly decent translation. One of the main principles of the report was need for transparency. I remember when we looked at the report initially, we looked at things in Sweden, and it looked like in Sweden at the time you could access Skype on whichever operator you were using, then the PTS report came out, whose main conclusion was it looks like things are fine and we only need transparency. Then we hear that in the last few weeks that one of the main operators in Sweden has all of a sudden changed its position from one of openness where they prohibit user VIP. 

So I just find it interesting that once transparency is being hailed as the way forward, some operators start to prohibit certain usages. That’s just a little anecdote. I’d be quite interested. I’ve heard a lot about antitrust as well. Competition law and antitrust law are very specific, narrow things. I don’t know if we can talk about collusion. I don’t like to think that Christoph and Steve at Telefonica collude with their friends at Vodafone. That’s not what I would call – I don’t think that’s what’s happening. If anything, operators are being fairly open and public about how we do things and we exchange good ideas in public. 

You know, competition is very restrictive, so I don’t know if a combination of just existing, very narrow competition law and transparency is enough, especially when we’re not always talking about something which is directly anticompetitive. 

We heard earlier people talking about political and other types of management or censorship. So it’s a wider debate, and I’d be very interested in the panel’s views on transparency, U.S. versus EU, and also and importantly what we do next. Do we need to do more in Europe? We have some framework, but maybe it’s not clear enough, and can self-regulation help? Can the multistakeholder dialogue and IGF, you know, bring a bit of light to this whole debate? Sorry if I was too long. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Listen. All these questions are nice. I think – if IGF in Sharm El Sheikh, I was able to moderate a session of three and a half hours, so I can continue with another two hours. That’s fine with me. At that point, will I have to go to the toilet. 

Okay. I will just leave to the panel now, close with questions, we have to go to it. Very brief wrapups. Michael, two sentences. 

>> MICHAEL ROTERT: Two sentences. One sentence for the U.S. versus EU net neutrality. The one is about bandwidth, and the other one is about content. 

The U.S. go much more on paying extra for bandwidth from large operators like Google or large content providers like Google. That’s the major difference. 

But until today, network neutrality has existed in the Internet. We see some problems coming up, but as I said, until today it has existed and it has led to innovation in many areas, like all sorts of services and applications as well as terminal devices, and it has worked. Thank you. 

>> FREDERIC DONCK: Just one comment, then wrap it up. I would like to come back to what Bertrand said. He made an excellent point on bandwidth issues. If you want to read more, you might read his excellent report of the Internet society called growing pains. You will be surprised about demands in bandwidth, about 40% per year increase vis-a-vis the capacity or ability to provide bandwidth, 45% or 50% per year is quite well balanced. The issue is, indeed, congestion issues, but that’s very different and complex. 

Wrap-up. I believe that when it’s about policy issues over the Internet traffic, we should keep a sharp focus on the fundamentals of the Internet. I named openness and then access and transparency. 

If I may share some personal view today, I would say that transparency is really crucial. I believe that not only for open Internet working but for other debates, as security, protection for minors, those kind of debates, a well-informed consumer or user who is able to make well-informed decision might solve a lot of issues and maybe 99% of what we are discussing today. Thank you. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Finally, Michael, Council of Europe has been working a lot on this issue, and I think this will be a great wrap-up. 

>> MICHAEL TRUPPE: Well, yes. I think it’s important to mention we have started already work on Council of Europe in the last meeting of an expert work group in March. We started drafting a declaration. It is still a work in progress but would comprise a lot of what has been said today. 

I don’t want to repeat the principles we already heard about, but there will be two focal points that have not been mentioned yet, which is, first of all, the proportionality and appropriateness of any network management technique that’s being implemented. For example, would cover the aspect that it is not maintained to no longer than strictly necessary. I think that’s also a very important fact that has to be taken into consideration when we are talking about a very, very innovative market where prerequisites could change not on a day-by-day basis but from one year to another. That would be one focal point. 

The second focal point would be the enforceability of users’ rights in this context. It is clear for us from a human rights perspective, users should be able to gauge the impact of their measures on the enjoyment of human rights and freedoms, and there should also be provided adequate avenues to challenge network management decisions, and these should be respectful of law requirement as well. 

And in the end, digitals offer suitable possibilities to obtain redress. So that would be some focal points that would be covered by this instrument. As I told you, it’s still a work in progress, but I’m pretty sure that you will be able to hear something about the result of that at the IGF in – at the end of this year, and just to add one thing that has been mentioned, there is a big difference between U.S. and Europe, and that will be my wrap-up, then. 

Compared to the rust we are remember in the position that a lot of regulatory powers have already been conferred to European regulators, and I think most of you are familiar with the network maturity case that has been decided at the beginning of April, where an order on net neutrality has been raised by the court of appeal with regard to an FCC decision. 

So the Europe, in this case, is very much ahead to the United States, and I think that there would be a great need for policymakers, for regulators, and for the industry in Europe for such a common policy for an open Internet that was also the overall theme of this workshop. It’s not about regulation, but it’s about a common policy for an open Internet. And I think that we will have to continue our work in more detail in order to achieve this aim in the next years, months, weeks. I don’t know. Thanks. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. For all of us that have been asking ourselves for these years if IGF is useful at all or it is just discussions, I think this work on network neutrality by Council of Europe is a good example of how IGF and EuroDIG can be effective. 

They have been following the discussion throughout the IGF, and they are working on declaration based on what they’ve heard in a multistakeholder dialogue. If we follow this principle, I think there might be a good use of EuroDIG discussions, and we are looking forward to seeing what the Council of Europe will come up to. 

Jean-Jaques, wrap up. What have we heard today and who do we take away to lunch? 

>> JEAN-JAQUES SAHEL: What do we take away? I’m hearing that in Europe we have at least the fundaments of some regulation already. We have some regulatory principles. There’s still clearly some divergencies about how far they go and whether they are enough and how they would be enforced. So I think we should – I think Michael Truppe made the right point here, and I think there’s still a need for European policymakers, European governments to look at this in more detail. Clearly there’s a lot of consultations happening at the moment. There is one in France by the French government, one – so there’s a lot of work happening there. 

I think I’m also hearing that there’s a lot of people in industry and civil society that are thinking about these issues, and earlier I heard about the usefulness of a multistakeholder dialogue. That’s what we mentioned at the last EuroDIG already, might be helpful to have the various stakeholders sitting around the table and seeing if we can bring together all the different elements, the user perspective, the ISPs perspective, et cetera, et cetera, and try to understand where we can go and maybe look at the longer-term objectives, how we can agree together. 

Clearly, I think it’s an open page. I don’t think there’s any particular conclusion either way. 

>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Definitely we’ll need much more time. Let me thank to the speakers. Let me also thank to our friends who helped us a lot with remote participation, which made a great number of more people with us. And thank you all for coming. We’re going to continue this. Thank you. 

(Applause)

[[Category:2010]][[Category:Sessions 2010]][[Category:Sessions]]