Ref. Ares(2015)4309615 - 15/10/2015
Ref. Ares(2015)4821965 - 04/11/2015
From:
@ericsson.com]
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 12:18 PM
To:
(CNECT)
Cc:
@cisco.com;
@alcatel-lucent.com);
Subject: new EP text on NN
Dear
,
We as telecom vendors would like to express our concerns with the latest EP text which has
come out a few days ago in preparation of the upcoming Trilogue on 29 June.
Although we fully support an open Internet, we see much of the EPs key language as very
detrimental to the good functioning of networks and to future innovation, so we offer initial
comments below.
We hope the European Commission and Council agree that this new EP language would be
unacceptable.
We would be very keen to meet you and the team on this very important topic to explain our
concerns.
Best,
Traffic management:
Deletion of “subject to this paragraph” in art 3(3). This wording is essential. When
politically it is now accepted that the Regulation should permit reasonable traffic
management this wording is needed to ensure legal clarity and to ’square the circle’
arising from the fact that the principle all data should be treated equally crosses an
important technical line and tries to apply something that might sound like a good
idea in the control plane in the data plane where it does not belong. Ideally, wording
corresponding to ‘subject to’ should also be included in the first sentence of recital
8.
The wording also in recital 8 explaining that non-discriminatory does not preclude
operators from giving different treatment to different types of traffic on the basis of
their technical requirements has been changed in a way that could undermine the
purpose of the sentence. Instead of saying that 'the requirement for traffic
management to be non-discriminatory does not preclude operators from…' it now
says that ‘the requirement for traffic management does not preclude providers … to
implement … traffic management measures…’ but that these measures should be
non-discriminatory. This is one of the key recitals to clarify that technically based
differentiation giving equal treatment to equivalent types of traffic is ok.
Specialised services:
Additional wording on specialised services that this can only be for services,
application and content where it is indispensable to have specific level of quality (in
both recital and art. 3(5). It should be a commercial decision driven by demand of
businesses and consumers which services are to be delivered to a specified level of
quality/service – IPTV e.g. not indispensable, you can watch house of cards or orange
is the new black by simple stream, you might just not get as high definition, reliability
etc.
Additional wording that specialised services can be delivered
only if there is sufficient
capacity to provide them
in addition to IAS as well as deletion of ‘other end users’ as
regards the impact on general availability and quality. This essentially says that we
have to build a 6-lane motorway in each direction even if we only need two of the
lanes most of the time and the rest of the time the other lanes should be
kept ‘dormant’ (not a perfect analogy but works I think on the high level). Also with
the deletion of ‘ there end users’ what you are effectively saying is that if someone in
your household is watching IPTV this mustn’t impact in any way other members of
the household.
The wording “Such services shall not be usable or offered as a replacement for
internet access services …” brings back text which creates a technical requirement
based on capability of implementations. It precludes specialized services from
evolving to use new innovative material that is available on the internet. Technically
it requires separate routing tables which are most practically achieved by assigning
Private IP addresses to client devices. Many devices, especially mobile phones,
cannot also have a second IP address assigned for ordinary internet service at the
same time. Consequently this reduces consumer choice since the value of internet
access must be forgone by those who take a specialized service.
Also, as traffic management that goes beyond reasonable traffic management now cover
both measures against specific services and specific categories it would be helpful to add to
the recital a clarification of what ’slow down’ means to ensure inclusion of specific categories
does not undercut the distinction between reasonable traffic management and more
restrictive traffic management. Our suggestion below for such wording:
Rules against ‘slowing down’ specific content, applications or services in situations
when such measures are applied to a specific category refer to the overall rate as
opposed to the behaviour of the individual packets and therefore do not preclude
providers of internet access services from managing types of traffic in accordance
with their technical requirements, such as sensitivity to delay, as part of reasonable
traffic management and which would otherwise be transparent, proportionate to the
purpose of overall quality transmission optimisation and would not constitute anti-
competitive behaviour.
Finally, we think there are also some false premises underlying the new recital 7a, 8b and not
least the new wording in recital 9a on congestion's link to capacity.
Ericsson