European Parliament passes net neutrality law | Hacker News Reader

European Parliament passes net neutrality law

gigaom.com

541 pointsxmpir143 comments

Here's a kind of sickening statement:

'"Europe's telecoms operators are facing decreasing revenues ... compared with operators in the U.S. and Asia," said the GSM Association, an industry group for mobile phone companies. In a statement signed by director Anne Bouverot, the group said European laws are "impairing their ability to invest in the infrastructure required to put Europe back on the path to growth and jobs."'

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/european-parliame...

One example of these "poor companies":

TeliaSonera: 1.69 billion euros in profit out of a 2.99 billion euro revenue (2013)

Edit: Sorry, yearly revenue was about 11.6 billion euro.

TeliaSonera: 1.69 billion euros in profit out of a 2.99 billion euro revenue (2013)

I'm having trouble believing those numbers. I found a source that agrees with you [1] but Bloomberg charts show only a ~10% profit margin. [2] I wonder if the reporter in [1] confused annual revenue with quarterly revenue from this Bloomberg article. [3]

EDIT: The reporter in [1] isn't wrong, but people misreading the first paragraph is probably the source of the confusion spreading across the Internet. Read down a few paragraphs and they compare 4th quarter net profit to 4th quarter revenue, which is roughly 10%.

Also, here is the profit & loss statement from 2013. [4] Annual revenue is about 104 billion kronor, net income is about 15 billion kronor.

[1] http://www.thelocal.se/20140130/beleaguered-teliasonera-took...

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/TLSN:SS

[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/teliasonera-profit-...

[4] http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials...

You're right, I was fooled by that first article's sneaky mixing of quarterly and annual numbers in the same sentence.

"The group's annual net profit fell by 25 percent to 14.97 billion kronor (1.69 billion euros, $2.3 billion), while revenue dropped by three percent to 26.5 billion kronor."

Still, these look like healthy numbers, and not like they are bleeding.

Thank you very much for that breakdown!

>"Europe's telecoms operators are facing decreasing revenues ... compared with operators in the U.S. and Asia,"

Because decisions on regulation should always have the goal of preserving the existing business models of middlemen:)

It's an important truth with a lot of implications for the wealth of nations that wages are sticky on the way down; should we devote as much study to the fact that modern governments don't believe that any regulation should be allowed to make the overall system more efficient?

The responsibility of the financial services are to allocate the utilization of resources between ventures that would produce more resources, and of course they as an industry find that 40% of that would be best allocated to themselves.

The responsibility of government is to facilitate interactions between people by providing rules, and guaranteeing that other actors that can facilitate that interaction be distributed efficiently within the system, and have to operate at a minimum quality standard. It has also taken on the duty of handing money to any rent-seeker whose actual facilitation function has become obsolete in the face of technology and other productivity gains.

This adds up to a situation where the financial industry and the state conspire to make sure that no productivity gains reach any individual either not in the financial services, or who doesn't represent a scarce resource required by rent seekers, i.e. mechanics of ways to obstruct interaction between individuals.

My only hope is that the inevitable slowdown in productivity that will come as the benefits of the Internet peter out (and by the repetition of identical siloed communication tools as a business model, that time is nigh) will force societies to eliminate these generalized inefficiencies just to keep up with population growth. We're seeing how that's going to play out right now in health care, education, and housing.

Sorry for typing this excerpt of my endless rant:)

Population growth is at the moment only happening in Africa though.

Yes... because companies with high profits hire more people... not.

You only ever hire when you need more people and if you're making tonnes of money it means your network is OK compared to everyone else and you don't need to invest more.

I think they will be more motivated now that the roaming cash cow is gone.

Yeah, someone seriously needs to whip their greedy arses.

I guess we need even more competition to drive these dinosaurs a bit out of business.

It's the USA and ASIA that should follow Europe, not the other way around.

I generally dislike telecom companies, but to be fair, the spokesperson said "decreasing revenues", not "paltry revenues", and said nothing about profit.

> mobile carrier industry body the GSMA said it “recognises the efforts of Rapporteur Pilar del Castillo to develop a constructive response to the Commission’s Connected Continent proposals but believes that the overall package fails to address the key challenge of stimulating growth and investment.”

I'll take that as a ringing endorsement and a strong sign that the net neutrality law is good for consumers. Good job on writing these amendments and getting them to pass, left-wing MEPs!

I think that's more a response to the ban on intraEU roaming charges than net neutrality...

If they're still bitter about that, then they need to grow up. The writing has been on the wall for a _long_ time about the death of EU roaming charges. Some companies were already bragging about not charging any well prior to the ban

> “Network operators must be able to develop services that meet the needs of consumers and charge different prices for differentiated products,” GSMA director general Anne Bouverot exclaimed.

This bit makes me say that Net Neutrality isn't exactly what they were lobbying for.

I think the EU is getting an amazing amount of work done, if you consider that it consists of 28 nation states which went to war with each other regularly for centuries up to a couple of decades ago...

And some of them are still culturally at war ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark%E2%80%93Sweden_relation...

Did you mean...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest

I don't know. Danish news always go "X is bad in Denmark. Meanwhile, X is really good in Sweden."

There used to be two ways to argue for a law proposal in Folketinget (Danish parliament):

"According to science, ..." and "in Sweden, they have..."

As a North American, hearing that the two leading arguments are scientific basis and copying other country's successful programs makes me disgusted with my own politicians.

I'm french, and I feel the same way.

there's a lot of 'grass is greener on the other side' in all of europe, this is probably the case here.

And it used to be that we tried to take their grass by conquest. Now we just go there on vacation.

True enough. Though in this specific case, grass is more likely to be covered by more now on the other side :)

;)

For anyone not familiar with the relationship: the two countries are closer than most neighbouring States in the US are; language is so close that people speak their own in conversation (think US vs. British English) and not only going from one country to the next is simpler and cheaper than going across London, but there is less identity checks.

Fun fact: People usually think that Britain and France has been most at war with one another, but Denmark and Sweden has actually been more at war (at least in terms of unique wars)[0].

Here is a non-exhaustive list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dano-Swedish_war

[0] The Hundred Years' War sort of ruins the statistics in terms of years at war.

That's as maybe, but we hate the French more than Denmark &Sweden hate each other! :P

Except the Scots traditionally don't hate the French ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Alliance

Could this then be why the English hate the Scots?

In fact, do the English like anyone at all..?

The English do not hate the Scots - and if you look at the number of English people who have houses and holiday in France they don't really hate France either....

I know, I know; it was in jest. And the English do seem to like France. We can look back in time to see that much. (Another joke..). I'm still not sure they like the French.

The English don't like any foreigners. We're not even particularly fond of the English.

We're amazingly tolerant, living in peace when surrounded by people we don't like ;)

I don't know how strong are the animosities between the old enemies in the western europe but I can assure you the hungarian government and its political class in general thrives in maintaining strong animosities against all its neighbors (excepting Austria maybe) and also they are perceived (by the neighbors) as very nationalistic and arrogant (very few of their patriotic discourses fail to recall the hungarian past glory, the dominance in the area and the injustice of the Trianon) and this leads to a lot of real tensions in the area.

As a Swede I can honestly say that for all intents and purposes Sweden, Norway and Denmark are all the same and we love each other.

Agreed. Problems are now more within the states, like in spain/basque/catalonia uk/scotland, belgium, etc. and the hongarian racists, and italy-greek state corruption.

We're probably not done yet in that case!

You're thinking of the Cold War, the end of Colonialism and Nuclear Bombs and confusing it with something the EU did.

I was born and grew up close to the french border, in a region that was contested between France and Germany and often changed hands. I was lucky to be born after the french-german friendship started to take roots, but I'm well aware that my country and France used to be arch enemies and fought three devastating wars between 1870 and 1970, not to count the petty little border conflicts. I still remember the day that you could just cross the border without a passport check and I'm still amazed every time I cross that border, that the border post, the guards, everything, just disappeared and that the border is now essentially a sign just like I'd enter a city saying "Welcome to France". People that were born elsewhere or later than me don't even recognize the spot any more where the border was.

To the contrast, my partner was born and raised close to the Belarussian border and that's still like I remember borders: Armed guards, passport check, fences, need a visa to cross. 20km of queue, 36hours of wait for trucks trying to pass the border.

_This_ is what the European Union achieved. It's still messy and there's a lot of things that go wrong and possibly that will never really change, because a union of such diverse people with such diverse and distinct history will never be able to figure out how to cater to all needs in a fair way, but the achievement of having no separating border between so many countries with different rules and regulations, it's just amazing and I cherish it every day and I'm deeply saddened every time I meet people that can't see it.

>People that were born elsewhere or later than me don't even recognize the spot any more where the border was.

Which is kind of a shame, because there are few things that make one feel as free as driving past the empty booths of an abandoned checkpoint without even slowing down.

The EU was born out of the EC, which was born out of the EEC, which was born out of ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community).

The entire concept of the EU is that a straightforward homogenous marketplace engenders trade which in turn engenders peace, as attacking your trading partners is rarely a beneficial move.

Nuclear weapons and MAD were extant before the EEC and throughout its existence, and have not played a role in the stability of Europe beyond having a common foe on the doorstep to the east.

Colonialism/imperialism most certainly has not ended. Many European nations have territories dotted around the globe, many of which are still highly contentious, and the US continues to act on moral principals which fall squarely out of the big book of empire-building.

The EU/EC/EEC has achieved plenty - but we humans are not accustomed to understanding accomplishments or progress which occurs on a timescale beyond our own limited lives.

I think it's worth distinguishing between the implementation of the EU (which is .. buggy) and the concept (which is a great universal message of peace and brotherhood and prosperity, so powerful that you have non-EU countries and peoples begging to be admitted)

>Colonialism/imperialism most certainly has not ended. Many European nations have territories dotted around the globe, many of which are still highly contentious

Some of these territories are considered to be part of the European Union, resulting in the slightly amusing fact that part of South America (French Guiana) is in fact part of the EU!

And the related trivia question about which country is in the most time zones....

The sun never sets on the French Republic.

Come on, that's a silly thing to say, everyone's empires were significantly dismantled after WW2.

It's easy not to fight when there's nothing to fight over and you've got a massive bear beating at the door.

I'm not claiming the EU's done nothing, I think it's made Europe richer, increased growth, etc., I'm claiming the EU had nothing to do with peace in Europe. Europe would still be at peace today with or without a common market. Especially given that the UK didn't join for 25 years and a bunch more in the 80s and then more recently. And the UK invaded Egypt with France before they were both in the EEC.

That was NATO and mutual fear and needing protection from US doing that, not the EU. It was simply being in club capitalism and being very scared of club communism.

And the world changed, become smaller. Which developed nations have gone to war with each other since WW2? No European country invaded Norway for it's oil. The UK is seriously talking about letting Scotland drift away without going to war in it. Territory's not the same as it was.

Again, my claim is that Europe would still be at peace today with or without a common market, there's literally been no reason to fight.

You know, we could discuss all day about the big russian bear which held Europe together, that there were no reasons to fight and so on. But let's just take a look at this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Communi...

And there the reason for the ECSC, as stated by its "father" Robert Schuman: ----- He declared his aim was to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible" which was to be achieved by regional integration, of which the ECSC was the first step. The Treaty would create a common market for coal and steel among its member states which served to neutralise competition between European nations over natural resources, particularly in the Ruhr. ----

So, would Germany have attacked other countries again without the ECSC? No one knows, because crystal balls are bugged again. But we know that the stated reason for the ECSC (and everything that followed) was the fear that Germany would do this. And this fear lead to the idea of making war against each other impossible. And that worked quite well so far.

So what, European Unification-ists will say anything, it doesn't mean it's grounded in reality.

It's simply a political ideal, and an incredibly out-dated one at that. And I believe it's as deluded as communism, it's simply not how humans work. We don't share cultures, we have different values. Other countries are splitting up in the world today, splitting into their ethnic groups, where the EU is bizarrely trying to combine them.

The EU hasn't been tested. It's not had a single test because for decades the pressure the Cold War forced co-operation, and after the cold war finished we had a massive economic bubble, meaning everyone was swimming in cash.

We've finally had the crash and it doesn't look all that swimmingly amazing or stable in the EU any more.

You think if fascists seized control of Greece they would magically be peaceful because they're in the EU?

That's a nice theory, but the real data doesn't back it up.

In reality, it's a delusion to believe that ethnicities and cultures can be divided by national borders. This hasn't ever worked except maybe on some islands. And not even in Great Britain, which consists of islands.

Even after the crash, Europe (and each and every of its members) is immensely more wealthy than after WWII, and still more wealthy than ever before.

Fascists did seize control of Greece several times, never under EU membership though. The EU did force Greece to get its affairs in order. But it sure wasn't pretty to watch...

> there's literally been no reason to fight.

But how does that differ to WWII? Sure, reparations, polish corridor (not a reason at all), rise of fascism - but those things happened in a Europe that had sworn it would never fight again at Versailles. LN failed impressively because it was oriented around arms control and security pacts, rather than trade agreements - it attempted to treat the symptoms, not the cause. NATO isn't dissimilar, but functions as the economic end of things is looked after by the EU.

Fundamentally, it's hard to either prove or disprove, as the only reference points we have are other similar historical contexts, but my money is on trade being a great enabler. Worked for the Romans, until they switched to military dominance (because they ended up with a plutarchy due to the traders (senators) getting richer, who ended up with private armies), at which point it all fell apart. Again, many other factors, and all of history is a great big murk from which we have to try to model what happens today.

The 'reason to fight' is the whole difference. In 1930ies, there were all kinds of practical reasons for European nations to win wars of conquest against their neighbours - that would bring them immediate practical and economic benefits, which would offset the costs of that military action unless it escalated to a world war. Especially after Versailles, there were many reasons to fight in Europe.

In 2000, however, there are no practical reasons for such wars (at least in Europe), as annexing a part of your neighbour would gain you little and hurt you a lot due to the trade impact.

And you don't think that trade has anything to do with that? Just mysterious external factors?

> Which developed nations have gone to war with each other since WW2?

Which non-European developed countries have previously gone to war with each other as regularly as European nations?

Also compare the situation in Europe to that in e.g. east Asia with its rather curious barking over tiny islands or even eastern, non-EU Europe where an independent nation was just invaded.

> Which developed nations have gone to war with each other since WW2?

Yugoslavia on the one side and NATO on the other. Like, twice. (And those may have started as internal Yugoslav conflicts, but then, WW1 started as an internal Austro-Hungarian conflict, too.)

Which developed nations have gone to war with each other since WW2?

Argentina / UK for one. And the Balkan conflicts for two.

The Balkans was a Yugoslavia civil war at its heart.

I give you the Argentina/UK one, but that seriously almost didn't happen. And is really one of the last, thorny, vestiges of colonialism, like Israel.

WW1 was an Austro-hungarian civil war at its heart. It spiraled out of control because we didn't have the system we have today.

Luckily Argentina's attempt to impose its colonial will was thwarted.

No it isn't, it's about self-determination.

For an example of how things can go wrong even in Europe, despite all of what you listed, just look at the Balkans.

I’m quite convinced that the EU and its predecessors were instrumental in keeping Western Europe very stable and very peaceful. The cold war helped, sure, but even 24 years after the end of that stability and peace aren‘t even threatened a little bit. Conflicts can and are routinely solved politically, not through any passive aggressive grandstanding that marks so many other international relationships. (I have always said that to judge supra-national institutions you have to look at how they deal with conflict, not how often they agree or how harmonious they sound when everyone has the same opinion. Those institutions exist to work constructively on solutions for conflicts and problems, that’s when you have to evaluate them. And there is nothing wrong with differences in opinion existing if institutions are in place to resolve that and find a compromise.)

Additionally the EU has been very profitable for very many European companies. Creating a common market (still imperfect and still more to profit companies than people, of course) has been a major advantage for everyone.

Well, he's technically right. The last European wars countries currently in the EU were involved in are the post-Yugoslavia wars (is there a name for them?). Prior to this, we have course the two world wars as the most well-known example of a cycle of destruction and butchery Europeans have displayed a particular taste for, often with exceptionally brutal results (eg, the Thirty Years' War).

    > post-Yugoslavia wars (is there a name for them?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars

Also wasn't there Hundred Year War, or are we sticking to modern ages?

I was specifically referring to the "couple of decades ago" part. Of course, there is a long list of power struggles, for instance in Italy, succession wars and the like.

For me, 70 years still is "a couple of decades" and the "cold war" wasn't entirely friendly either, now was it?

The EU has only existed for a couple of decades. To suggest that the EU is a reason we haven't had any wars recently is ridiculous, yet it gets trotted out time and time again by pro europeans. It's as scientific as saying vaccinations probably cause autism.

Also, the EU is not getting much useful done considering the millions that pour into it daily. The level of waste and bureaucracy is staggering. Moving the entire parliament between locations, the amount of money wasted in translating every document into every language, and so on.

The EU is obsessed with micromanaging every little detail of our lives. From regulations on fruit to banning things like light bulbs and vacuum cleaners. And the less said about the absolutely ridiculous nightmare that is "cookie law" the better. No one should be creating laws on what websites are allowed to do with cookies.

Thankfully the UK will not be part of the EU for too much longer. I give it 5 years at the most. (See the landslide win by UKIP in the debates this week).

If that doesn't happen, you can be pretty sure there will be wars in europe. Unchecked mass immigration tends to end up badly.

> The EU has only existed for a couple of decades. To suggest that the EU is a reason we haven't had any wars recently is ridiculous.

You don't go to war with your major trading partners, it would be economic suicide. Of course, the EU isn't the only reason why there hasn't been (more) war, but it's a significant contributing factor along with organisations like NATO.

>From regulations on fruit

Ugh. I wish people would stop bringing this horrendous straw-man up. Those regulations replaced a dozen separate national regulations with one single European regulation. That's good for trade and good for consumers. It's not something to bitch about.

>Thankfully the UK will not be part of the EU for too much longer.

You may be waiting a lot longer than you think.

> You don't go to war with your major trading partners, it would be economic suicide.

I suggest you go read up on WWI.

To be fair, trade between European countries has increased by orders of magnitude since WW1, and that remains true even after you account for general economic growth.

> You may be waiting a lot longer than you think.

No, I won't. The public is overwhelmingly hostile, and demands a say in who is creating our laws.

There will be an absolute landslide victory for UKIP in the may elections, and the government will have to take note. If around 80% want to withdraw from Europe, you're going to have to do what they want at some point.

The public will demand we govern ourselves rather than be dictated to by some foreigners.

If not, I'm sure there will be wars pretty soon...

No, I won't. The public is overwhelmingly hostile, and demands a say.

As an outside observer from another continent, pitching the idea of an in-out referendum struck me more like your politicians simultaneously punting and pandering on the issue without actually caring to leave the EU. Especially considering that your current government refused to even try and make the referendum happen unless you reelect them first. The further you get from the 2008 economic meltdown the less you'll care to leave the EU and they know it.

I just checked the polling and even though a few years ago there was a 25 percentage point lean towards leaving, it's declined over the years and I'm completely unsurprised to see today that in March opinion has started leaning towards staying.

> There will be an absolute landslide victory for UKIP in the may elections, and the government will have to take note. If around 80% want to withdraw from Europe, you're going to have to do what they want at some point.

Yeah, I certainly hope so. Britain has been helding back European integration long enough :)

As an European from the Shengen Area, I never really considered the UK a part of EU.

London is 2H30 from my home (Paris), but I found going to Roma or Barcelona more easy, since I don't need any ID (and don't have to deal with customs and the induced delays).

I board the train on the evening, and when I wake up I'me ready for a week-end abroad. It's also cheaper, but that can be explained by the technical feat required to create The Channel Tunnel.

I agree. I am British. I'm in no way whatsoever "European". We'll be better out of the EU, and the EU will be better without us.

> We'll be better out of the EU, and the EU will be better without us.

I don’t know and don’t care about the former, but being able to implement remotely sensible policies without an American outpost sitting at the table will be a net plus for Europe, yes. I wonder why you guys wanted to join in the first place. Free tr…uce, free trace, free…trade, maybe?

EDIT: OTOH, is there any industry left in Britain that could benefit from ‘just’ free trade, as opposed to free movement of capital and such?

Things will be different. For example, Britain will have absolutely zero say in any regulations or currency policies in the European Union. Which sounds great, from a british perspective, until you consider that the UK will be forced to swallow any EU regulation anyway. That's what the Swiss and Norway do by essentially importing labor and trade goods without checks or customs. If you want import controls and customs however, you have to sacrifice a percentage point or two of your GDP...

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/05/07/eu-referendum-paradox/

Not sure that qualifies as 'overwhelmingly hostile', especially with so many undecideds.

>There will be an absolute landslide victory for UKIP in the may elections, and the government will have to take note. If around 80% want to withdraw from Europe, you're going to have to do what they want at some point.

Current opinion polls would beg to differ. Labour is polling first and UKIP and the Conservatives are vying for 2nd place.

And as for a referendum, ~43% want to remain in the EU with ~36% wanting to leave.

>The amount of money wasted in translating every document into every language alone is idiotic.

Because fuck those people who don't speak a certain language, amirite?

As someone from the US, some nanny-statism I dislike aside, I am very, very jealous of what the EU's getting done. They don't let corporations walk all over them, possible waste and bureaucracy issues aside.

> Because fuck those people who don't speak a certain language, amirite?

No, because it shows how idiotic the EU is to start with. Trying to create laws that fit all countries, and then translating them into every language is just a silly waste of money.

OK, another example for you: The parliament MOVES from Brussels to Strasburg EACH MONTH!!! (From wikipedia) - "Each month, the EP moves back and forth to meet the EU obligation to hold meetings also in France."

What the hell is the point of that amount of waste and traveling?

That people feel better. Many things the EU does are about the feelings of people. I know, we are all rational beings and so on, we should just stop our feelings and get on with it. But that doesn't work. And because it doesn't work we don't say "English is our language from now on. You don't want that? Sucks to be you" and because of that the parliament moves between two cities.

The fact that some people, in some foreign country I will never visit, feel better, isn't much comfort to me I'm afraid.

If you're wondering why all your comments are turning an ever-lightening shade of grey, it's because of uninformed, thoughtless, selfish sentiments like this.

The "ME ME ME" age of politics needs to end. And in some places, it appears it's moving towards that goal.

I'm not wondering. I fully expected hackernews crowd to be gushingly pro-european. This view is thankfully not echoed in the UK.

It's not about being selfish. It's about democracy and freedom. Imagine laws being created by people who don't even live on the same landmass as you, speak the same language, or know anything about your country or culture. Imagine if Brazil started making laws about what US citizens could do.

I think you overestimate how United the United States really is, compared to the EU.

London is a 4 hour drive from Brussels.

Washington D.C. is a 41 hour drive from Seattle. And you can't even drive from D.C. to Hawaii.

When looking real hard at culture, I'm sure we can find as many differences between people from NY,NY and say Fairbanks, Alaska as we could between Londoners and Berliners.

I'm not against your arguments that the EU is a Bad Thing as such (I'm still on the fence on that one), but if you're thinking that US citizens cannot possibly relate to our issues with the EU since they're all nice and united, you could be in for a surprise.

The US is all on the same land mass (mostly). They all speak the same language. They've all lived there pretty much the same amount of time.

With Europe, the UK is a different landmass, we all speak different languages, and we have centuries of complex history and culture.

Sure, the US varies quite a bit, but nothing like the amount that europe varies.

Not to mention, States (as opposed to Federal) Rights is a big deal in the US because we find your exact concerns to be crucial to efficient government.

I'm glad to see a European that the idea of local government isn't completely lost upon.

Its also strange to see such a pro-centralization crowd on HN given that the causation relationship between diversity/decentralization and robustness of a complex network is well documented.

Why not? To them, you're just some person in a foreign country.

Exactly! And that's how it should be.

So are you one of those EU critics who think there should be no free trade in Europe? Thereby sacrificing a significant amount of points of GDP and disrupting (in a bad way) the European Economy?

Or are you of the other faction which actually believes you can have free trade without the EU, and even without talking to each other? Really, the alternative is 28*27 bilateral treaties on each and every issue in international trade. More, if you include Switzerland and Norway.

I think the back and forth isn't necessary. On the other hand, the parliament is regulating the biggest single economy in the world. I'd be careful of penny-pinching at the wrong end. And the parliament isn't the biggest cost in the EU budget. Quite the opposite.

> OK, another example for you: The parliament MOVES from Brussels to Strasburg EACH MONTH!!!

That is not "another example"; that is easily the most ridiculous waste of time and money in the EU. There's plenty of other waste, but none of it compares even remotely to this.

I love the EU man. It doesn't look like you understand the plan. Given the size of the US, China and India each European nation alone is weak. However combined they are the largest economy in the world.

We're doing this to remain relevant and to prevent other nations from tearing us apart through uneven economic exchanges much like workers ensure they cannot be exploited by joining unions. It is a union and has all the perks (and problems!) associated with unionization.

>money wasted in translating every document into every language

How do you think google trains their translation algorithms?

(They also use the UN equivalents.)

I did not suggest that actually, but I do believe the EU has contributed towards cementing peace in Europe. Certainly the EU made prosperity easier by removing the need for borders.

If you think the EU is too bureaucratic and wasteful, you might be right. But just consider the alternative, if you wanted a free trade zone and international cooperations in all sorts of areas between 28 nations. You would have to negotiate bilateral treaties between 28 nations.

Another good point for the EU is that it demands democratic standards from all the members.

> "if you wanted a free trade zone and international cooperations in all sorts of areas between 28 nations."

I don't... I don't see any upside to increased centralisation and globalisation.

These are great news, I am a big supporter for net neutrality, however I am a bit concerned about one small detail:

>“Net neutrality” means the principle according to which all internet traffic is treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, independently of its sender, recipient, type, content, device, service or application.

I wonder how this will work in case of malicious attacks, ddos, disruptive requests and packets/connections with the sole purpose of disrupting the normal usage of the net. Blocking these at isp level is not a bad idea, but how deep does this rabbit hole go?

Reasonable traffic management measures shall be transparent, non-discriminatory, proportionate and necessary to:

a) implement a court order;

b) preserve the integrity and security of the network, services provided via this network, and the end-users' terminals;

- http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...

This doesn't extend to protecting illegal acts from interference.

By that logic ISPs could throttle or block torrenting or Bitcoin if they are "illegal" in some country.

That is correct. In The Netherlands we already have net neutrality, but this hasn't stopped the Pirate Bay from being blocked. However, try to prove to a judge the entire protocol is illegal and should be blocked.

Initially the court decided that blocking all subscribers went too far but BREIN wasn’t satisfied and took the case to a full trial, which they won. Both Ziggo and XS4ALL filed subsequent appeals, arguing that the blockade was ineffective and denied subscribers’ free access to information.

Today the Court of The Hague released its verdict which sides with the Internet providers.

In its ruling the Court states that the Pirate Bay blockade is disproportionate and ineffective, citing TNO research and the Baywatch report of the University of Amsterdam. As a result, the blockade was found to hinder the Internet providers’ entrepreneurial freedoms.

jan 2014

These are great "news" (quotes cause they aren't exactly.. new) which I didn't know before. As an expat living in Amsterdam, it makes me happy, thanks for sharing!

Sure, what's the problem? If it's illegal, it's illegal. The blame is on the people if they let their governments ban BT.

It was a close call... Neelie Kroes didn't want this. But against expectations, democracy won.. That doesn't happen much in the world (Eg. What Karel De Gucht tried / did ).

All with all, i'm very glad this happened! It gave me some faith again in Europe as a regulator (i'm from Belgium ).

(still dissappointed in Neelie Kroes though, she has some very good ideas... Opposing net neutrality was definetly a bad idea)

PS. Some examples of good ideas:

- Transforming libraries in hackerspaces (this is one of the best ideas i ever came accross)

- Removing roaming (expensive cell phone calls in foreign countries, but in Europe, we are all different countries. 9000 € for checking your mail and etc... was not an exception). Some people who regulary stay in foreign countries (work, business, long vacation, .. get a mobile subscription in that country, so they would have 2 phone numbers). But this should be fixed in 2016 (still a long time though)

- PRO net neutrality (some years ago, currently she changed her opinion for an unknown reason : http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/blog/netne... )

On the whole, I think she does good work. I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she genuinely thought the text as proposed would sufficiently protect net neutrality or at least underestimated the holes it left. But even if she didn't, it is good to see that parliament did its job and corrected the mistakes made by the legislators.

She's the only Eurocommissioner that I constantly see fighting for all sorts of good causes. The others barely register or seem to be a net negative. I like Kroes a lot, but every once in a while, she suddenly supports something that seems quite the opposite of her usual position. Weirdly out of character. And I often find myself wondering if maybe there's something else at play in the background.

That's exactly the same thing as i thought...

And the opposite of net neutrality is a really big deal. She had contacts with telecom though for roaming, perhaps she had to change position in favor of net neutrality in return of dropping roaming costs in Europe?

(just thinking out loud)

I wouldn't give too much on this just yet. From the information in the article I can't tell if the word "strong" is correct for what was passed today.

If anything, an indicator that Neelie Kroes is happy with the result might point to a weak law that won't help net neutrality at all. We might not have the "Specialised services" part in there anymore. Yet, let's wait until the dust settles and some people have read the complete text before we celebrate.

Also, as we speak, the text that didn't make it might already have been inserted in the US-EU trade agreement that is discussed behind closed doors at the moment. Wouldn't be the first time that the same words were dismissed first and than added in a different law. ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) was dismissed and then added to a treaty between the EU and Canada.

> If anything, an indicator that Neelie Kroes is happy with the result might point to a weak law that won't help net neutrality at all.

At this point she has no choice. She can't lament the passing of a law she initiated herself. I wouldn't put too much stock into it.

> Also, as we speak, the text that didn't make it might already have been inserted in the US-EU trade agreement that is discussed behind closed doors at the moment.

Obviously, the industry is not going to give up without a fight. The price of net neutrality is eternal vigilance and all that.

Would you elaborate on your final paragraph, please? I wasn't aware of either a closed-door US-EU trade agreement in the works, or any back room ACTA-style deal in a Canada-EU treaty.

The US-EU trade agreement may refer to TTIP, whose contents do seem to be secret at the moment. http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/

Well then, finally a point to prove to anti-EU activists (UK: UKIP, DE: AfD, etc.) why having the European Union actually is important and the European Parliament isn't just a paper tiger regulating the population to death.

(Granted, most European laws ARE regulation to death, but this is a good starting point...)

I'm so happy how Andersdotter/@teirdes has arrived in Brussels. She is already "e-communications" spokesperson for the Greens/EFA group in the EP: http://www.greens-efa.eu/electronic-communications-12163.htm... and I believe that they have a very powerful collaboration on privacy and other pirate issues

I actually met her last year at a conference. Very intelligent and well-spoken.

Yeah, it's wonderful, a young person talking about internet issues I care about, just listen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNH3MCFkBg

Right now I'm of course nervous for the election, and I hope that she will keep her mandate.

She's clearly got a visionary mind, and uses every opportunity to stress the need for evidence-based policy.

I'd be happy to give her my vote, but I'm in the wrong country.

Roaming charges will effectively be dropped on the 15th December 2015. Src: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/2014...

So much is changing in the tech world. I hope that by dec 2015 we have incentivised mesh networks, thus making centralized telcos obsolete.

I think this can also be taken as good news in the US. Passing these laws makes Europe a very attractive place to put an internet service.

It may be wishful thinking, but my hope is that this form of international competition motivates US legislators to pass similar net-neutrality laws to keep from losing start-ups and tech companies to Europe.

Roaming charges: I predict the telecomms will be increasing their general charges to make good losses on roaming.

"Infrastructure and spectrum are expensive, and these costs need to be recouped somehow. Right now, the mobile operators are a bit stuck into low domestic data prices. So the money has to be clawed back from roaming customers instead".

The reversal of this policy will mean that the non-traveling public will subsidize travelers. Great for those voting and attending the EU Parliament among others. Not so hot for the rest.

Possible, but I would say it will rather create a much fiercer competition: Differences between domestic rates and non-domestic rates are what kept the European Telecoms market from becoming truly European. As a German, the only viable option if I am spending most my time within Germany was to go with a German carrier. Now with the removal of roaming charges, the EU becomes the domestic market and in principle I could shop around other EU countries to find the best deal. Austria for example has some really good deals, so maybe I will go with a carrier from there. And with SEPA even billing should not be an issue.

The other (intended) thing this will spur is further consolidation of the EU Telecoms market as there will suddenly be a much larger number of competing players on the market. As I said, in principle Austrian Telecoms are now for the first time directly competing for customers with Spanish Telecoms in Germany, so I guess we'll see a lot more mergers in the close future. Which might turn out to be anticompetitive in the long run, mind.

I'm pretty sure that higher prices for international calls have not been abolished, though, which puts a dent in the idea of shopping around for the best deal.

Though, I suppose you could buy multiple SIMs and switch them around as needed now.

To my understanding calls from your own country to another EU country are also covered by this: http://ec.europa.eu/news/science/130916_en.htm

The quote: >International call charges would be capped at the price of a long-distance domestic call and intra-EU mobile calls at €0.19 per minute (plus VAT).

Ah, I'm glad to be proven wrong on this one!

Still, it's a cap not a complete abolishment so there's still some work to be done.

> The reversal of this policy will mean that the non-traveling public will subsidize travelers. Great for those voting and attending the EU Parliament among others. Not so hot for the rest.

Am... not really. It just means that the travelling public won't subsidize the locals, i.e. that everybody will pay as much as they use.

Also, I don't believe that infrastructure is expensive (once it is set up), and in any case, if either the infrastructure or the spectrum become too expensive, the governments can nationalize the infrastructure and offer it for rent to multiple carriers (so that competing carriers don't need to build their own infrastructure - some countries already do that), and/or reduce the spectrum prices.

A couple of popular acts emanating from the EU parliament just recently.

Couldn't be anything to do with the European parliament elections coming up this summer could it?

Our local MEP was on radio claiming credit for the smartphone recharger harmonization measure just recently. When queried about loopholes in the act that effectively allow manufacturers to sidestep the issue she revealed herself to be clueless.

> Providers of internet access to end-users shall not discriminate between functionally equivalent services and applications.

This means they can still throttle torrents, right?

If its:

a) Reasonable,

b) transparent,

c) non-discriminatory of that traffic type,

d) there is temporary and exceptional network congestion,

e) measure is not be maintained longer than necessary.

If all those are true they may throttle torrents. A key word here is transparent, since few ISP even admit that they throttle traffic.

Well, based on that quote they can throttle what they want - but they have to do it equally across all similar applications. So for example they can't throttle Youtube and not throttle Netflix - they have to throttle both (or neither).

Well, that depends on your interpretation of "functionally equivalent". Is Youtube functionally equivalent with Netflix?

Spam-Emails, DDOS attacks and Http Traffic aren't functionally equivalent, which is probably the point.

I think the definition will also include the question of competition between the traffic streams. Youtube and Netflix are competitors, whereas an E-Mail Service and a Gaming Service isn't.

Net Neutrality should not mean we have to build the infrastructure that can faithfully execute DDOS attacks. Now, if we want to build the infrastructure to let all internet users stream 4K Video 24/7, is a whole other question...

I wonder if we could interpret this to mean that it would be illegal for ISPs not to provide IPv6. It is just internet traffic after all.

Why do I get the feeling that most of these comments are basically pointing out faults in EU instead of the news itself which is of great relevancy to all of us.

I understand the audience here is mostly American but shouldn't we really by cheering this achievement and try to convince US senators to follow the lead?

US is the one who is behind right now. Neutrally speaking.

If we didn't already have such a shoddy history with national telecoms (and other infrastructure company), I would be in favor of them.

It's so unsatisfying to think that this ugly government in bed with big oligopolies, regulators, lobbying and nonsense could be the optimal solution. yuck.

It never stops to amaze me - what does have Europe that other places don't?

...anyway, I'm just glad and thankful to be born in Europe!

Are European laws a bellwether for US laws? I hope so.

They're still allowed to have premium channels for their TV service and such. Isn't that not very "net neutrality"-like?

TV is not internet. You can run TV over internet, but that's a service being provided over the internet. TV has never been a universal access medium.

From first reading, this makes it look as if ISPs will be unable to offer eg elevated weighting to specific VoIP traffic unless that's offered by the ISP themselves. I want my VoIP trunks to my exchange to have better QoS than my Skype chats.

I'm not convinced this is a good thing.

In addition, there is demand on the part of content, applications and services providers, for the provision of transmission services based on flexible quality parameters, including lower levels of priority for traffic which is not time- sensitive. The possibility for content, applications and service providers to negotiate such flexible quality of service levels with providers of electronic communications may also be necessary for the provision of certain services such as machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Providers of content, applications and services and providers of electronic communications should therefore continue to be free to conclude specialised services agreements on defined levels of quality of service as long as such agreements do not impair the quality of internet access service.

-http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...

I think it is more like "unable to offer eg elevated weighting to specific VoIP traffic unless that is specifically requested by their users" - which means they can't discriminate between services for their financial benefit rather than because that is what their users want (favouring skype over google's hangout unless Google pay them a wodge of cash, or vice versa, for instance).

They would be able to give weighting to VoIP traffic generally by my understanding, assuming that they can correctly identify the traffic of course, so they can still perform good QoS practise to stop large bulk data transfer (P2P sharing, huge HTTP transfers) causing massively inflated latency for more interactive traffic (VoIP, small HTTP(S) transfers, ...) where that matters.

Skype is VoIP traffic, and it should have equal priority with all other VoIP traffic.

Do you want your VoIP to have higher QoS than my Skype? In which case that's a problem.

I want my VoIP trunks to my exchange to have better QoS than my Skype chats.

Then configure your router to do so?

That works for my link from the PoP to my router, but not beyond the PoP.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com