Europe Cracks Down on Data Cap Exemptions in Update To Net Neutrality Rules

European telecom regulator BEREC has updated its net neutrality guidelines to include a strict ban on zero-rating practices that exempt specific apps or categories of apps from data caps imposed by Internet service providers. From a report: The document published Tuesday provides guidance to national regulatory authorities on their "obligations to closely monitor and ensure compliance with the rules to safeguard equal and non-discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of Internet access services and related end-users' rights." BEREC stands for Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications.

"Despite intense lobbying from big carriers and giant platforms, BEREC voted to clearly ban zero-rating offers that benefit select apps or categories of apps by exempting them from people's monthly data caps," Stanford Law Professor Barbara van Schewick wrote. "The ban applies whether the app pays to be included or not, closing a loophole in the draft guidelines." While Europe strengthens its net neutrality regime, the US hasn't had any federal net neutrality rules since they were removed under former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. The FCC won't be re-imposing net neutrality rules any time soon because it still has a 2-2 partisan deadlock, and President Biden's nomination of Gigi Sohn has languished in the Senate.

stick weight and measures on an CAP and then goway

[Joe_Dragon]

stick weight and measures on an CAP and then they may go away or the ISP's will be need to come with an meter that can pass it.

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[cayenne8]

Are data caps still a thing?

If so, where do you live and who is your provider that has you under a data cap?

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[thegarbz]

Yes, on basically any mobile phone anywhere in the world.

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[cayenne8]

Yes, on basically any mobile phone anywhere in the world.

I don't believe I have any on mine, and I have a phone, watch and multiple tablets on my cell phone plan.

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[thegarbz]

And yet I guarantee you your provider whoever they may be offers you a cheaper plan with a datacap. Just because you bought a nice plan doesn't mean data caps don't exist. They are offered in *every* country on mobile. They are just not common in many countries for fixed line internet connections.

Re: stick weight and measures on an CAP and then g

[Z00L00K]

I can consider exemptions from the data cap for managing your subscription.

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[gweihir]

I do not have data caps on my phone. I have a bandwidth cap of 100kbps on one ($5/month data-only plan for IoT) and one of far higher on my regular phone. No data caps whatsoever.

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[RightSaidFred99]

Lol, all over the US.

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[fazig]

For tethered internet connection, mostly no, though there might be exceptions.

For wireless broadcast connections however (opposed to point to point connections), where everyone in the same cell metaphorically has to share the same wire, data capped plans are widespread. Of course there are uncapped plans as well, but ISPs usually have you pay a lot more for that.


Thanks to phones being used everywhere, wireless over 4G/5G was become the dominant way of connecting to the internet, so this is a topic of r

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[cayenne8]

For tethered internet connection, mostly no, though there might be exceptions.

For wireless broadcast connections however (opposed to point to point connections), where everyone in the same cell metaphorically has to share the same wire, data capped plans are widespread. Of course there are uncapped plans as well, but ISPs usually have you pay a lot more for that.

Oh...when someone mentions "internet connection" like in this article, I automatically assume the home wired connection, not cell phone coverage

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[fazig]

Not an issue for me either. For my phone I have a zero data plan.
Because paying by the megabyte for the few emergencies where I need an internet connection while I'm on the go turns out to be cheaper than paying for even a plan with a small cap. Thus most of the time I have mobile data simply deactivated.
And when I do stream on my phone I make sure to be connected to an unmetered WiFi connection, like the landline based VDSL2+ connection I have at home. Until a couple of years ago I couldn't even be arsed

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[cayenne8]

However as I gather from a lot of (especially younger) people these days, most of them don't use any tethered connections, like land lines, phones with their 4G/5G and maybe logging into some WiFi where it's available in some places that are not their own, is "the internet" for them. And as time goes own I expect this to become the norm for the regular consumer.

Don't people buy nice, big TVs with good sound systems anymore....?

I mean, that's what I watch movies and content at home with.

Sure, if you are o

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[fazig]

A lot of TVs these days are what I'd call here "internet agnostic".

They may come with an RJ45 jack for some kind of Ethernet connection, they may have built in WiFi, they possibly have some USB port that you can plug something like an Amazon Fire Stick into. Often they have all those options. The router/gateway they connect to may be connected to whatever, even a mobile network.
You can even stream from your phone to your TV over WiFi or an USB data cable (given good enough bandwidth like with USB C stand

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[toutankh]

Where I live (Austria) they're still a thing but competition in recent years has made them irrelevant, for example I have a 90 GB monthly cap, which is way more than most people (including me) need. It is relatively recent though, for instance I was capped at 3GB about 5 years ago.

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[RotateLeftByte]

There are caps on mobile (cell) data in most places. Sure, you can opt for an unlimited plan but for most of us, that is total overkill. I use on average less than 500MB of mobile data a month. My plan gives me 2Gb.
There again, I don't stream anything on my phone so what do I know eh?

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[RightSaidFred99]

Instead of answering, they modded you down. I think you have your answer...

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[fustakrakich]

If ISPs were regulated as common carriers, net neutrality would be the default, no throttling, no redirection, etc... Demand the dumb pipe and pay for firewall services from your ISP if so desired

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[PPH]

What (genuinely) are the arguments in favour of bringing it back?

Not having ISPs track and pay tax on the value of the bandwidth that they give you for free. They are reporting the fair market value of such give-aways, aren't they?

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[mrfaithful]

I don't know why the sky didn't fall. When they were trying to repeal net neutrality we had the bosses of actual ISPs talk about carving up the internet and selling you "priority" access to facebook, netflix, etc. for additional fees. In other words, turning the internet into a piecemeal cable subscription where best effort equality was a thing of the past. The boss of Virgin Media flat out stated that they've been prioritising some traffic over others for some time and segmented, packaged, tiered by conten

That's interesting

[DrMrLordX]

Zero-rating used to be pretty common in some European markets. I remember seeing a lot of it in Portuguese mobile ads during the American Net Neutrality debate (as an example of what can happen when the market becomes rife with zero-rating; some of the ads shown looked pretty nefarious, with lists of dozens of zero-rated apps along with draconian caps for a mobile connection).

Not being an EU citizen and having a mobile plan with no zero-rating, it doesn't really affect me from any dimension. But it will be an interesting test case of what happens when zero-rating is banned from markets where it is currently common.

Re:That's interesting

[thegarbz]

Literally the first two providers I looked at in the Netherlands and Germany offer plans with limited traffic but Zero Rated Netflix streaming. So yes, it is a thing in Europe.

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[gweihir]

It _was_ a thing.

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[drinkypoo]

It used to make sense when transfer was expensive, and there was a big cost difference.

The Rich

[Matt321]

The rich are google, facebook, netflix, etc... not the ISP. The rich benefit most from net neutrality. The fight is not between us and the ISP, its between the rich and the ISPs. As expected in the EU, and soon the USA, the rich will get what they want, me to be able to stream netflix without limits from the ISP.

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[Shinobi]

Way to go in not understanding: This actually hurts Netflix etc more, because they can't just dump a bunch of servers in the ISP's network and have that exempted. Now their traffic counts just the same as a smaller streaming service's(that can't afford to put servers with ISP's etc) traffic etc.

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[jmke]

This actually hurts Netflix etc more, because they can't just dump a bunch of servers in the ISP's network and have that exempted.

^this.

in our country you can choose some apps to be excempt from mobile data cap (which are anywhere between 500Mb-12Gb)

from their company site:

Unlimited data for your favorite app
Choose a favorite app from Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger. WhatsApp is activated by default on all mobile subscription

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[jmke]

When you use these apps, no data usage will be billed.

The video apps are Netflix, Youtube, Twitch and Pickx.
The music apps are Apple Music, Spotify, SoundCloud, Deezer, One World Radio-Tomorrowland and Audiomack. The social media apps are Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger and TikTok.

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[Matt321]

On my ISP (in kansas city), stream video has lower caps and speeds than other traffic. This hurts netflix.