Europe Debates Neutrality issues

Though it appears there is little to no chance of significant network neutrality legislation or regulation in the U.S. market over the next couple of years, the subject still is being looked at in the European Community, which has largely seen this as a U.S. issue, for the most part.

A Sept. 30 report by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, the European Union’s telecommunications advisory group, has concluded that there was no new need for new regulation of this type, at this point.

The group, which is made up of the bloc’s national telecommunications regulators, said operators in more than a dozen countries — Austria, Croatia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, France, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Britain — had either blocked or throttled services like Skype or file-sharing Web sites.

But most blocking stopped after being reported to local media or regulators. Some might be more comfortable with regulations, but the EREC points to those instances as examples of problems working themselves out quickly, without the need for regulatory action.

 read the full report here