After a public consultation which gave rise to many contributions, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) published its guidelines on 30 August 2016.
These BEREC guidelines aim at providing guidance to national regulators on the implementation of net neutrality rules arising from the Regulation 2015/2120 of 25 November 2015.
In its guidelines, the BEREC clarified certain specific issues resulting from the European Regulation which generated tension between actors of telecommunications sector.
The BEREC notably provided clarification on the following subjects:
the traffic management by the ISP intended to ensure a priority for specific communications on their networks is authorized but this practice must be limited in time for the « necessary » duration and must avoid targeting specific contents;
the « zero rating » practice consisting of not deducting certain services or apps from the data subscription is regulated. As a result, if a subscriber used his whole volume of data, all services and apps must be blocked or slowed down in a similar manner, including those which were not counted. In addition, certain services as musical or video streaming are excluded from the benefit of this practice;
the concept of specialized services for which the operator grants a guaranteed bandwidth (such as internet TV or interactive medicine) was clarified: it cannot be an internet service access; they must not downgrade the quality of the principal internet access.
This roadmap drafted by the BEREC aims at allowing regulatory authorities to implement the Regulation in a consistent manner. The first report on net neutrality from the national authorities is due for 30 June 2017.
The bill for a digital republic which will be adopted in France at the end of September 2016 will complement investigative rights and increase sanction powers granted to the ARCEP in order to ensure these principles.
Key words: Behring – Anne-Solène Gay – Juris Initiative – Regulation (UE) 2015/ 2120 – Regulation (UE) 2015/ 2120 of 25 November 2015 – Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications – BEREC – Guidelines– Guideline of 30 August 2016
