BEREC publishes draft Net Neutrality Guidelines
BEREC, the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications, has published draft guidelines on best practice and measures to ensure transparency of services provided by ISPs in the context of net neutrality.
These guidelines are not binding but National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) are required to take the "utmost account" of BEREC’s guidelines.
BEREC highlights the need for transparency coupled with competition to allow real consumer choice as well as common reference terms so that consumers are able properly to compare service offerings.
The draft guidelines are relevant to ISPs, NRAs and third parties such as price comparison websites which are encouraged to aid consumer understanding of net neutrality issues and explain offerings from different ISPs.
The main information which BEREC recommends including in a net neutrality transparency policy are:
- an explanation of terminology;
- advertised download speeds;
- actual achieved speeds for downloads and uploads and factors which are likely to affect them;
- minimum service offered and other service quality parameters. These have to be provided in lay persons’s terms, so highly technical information must be translated into examples of the type of service a customer can expect;
- precise language about transparency without use of vague terms like ‘fair usage’;
- information about data caps and download limits and the consequence of exceeding limits; and
- information about the way in which ISPs manage traffic, especially where there is prioritisation of content, restriction of bandwidth or blocking.
Ofcom is likely to publish its own guidance based on BEREC’s final guidelines.
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"The draft guidelines are relevant to ISPs, NRAs and third parties such as price comparison websites"