Brussels - The Open Internet is critical to the development of society as a whole. The European electronic communications industry is at the forefront of its development and invests heavily in quality networks and services, in the context of highly competitive markets.As work on the Connected Continent Regulation evolves, we underline the importance of promoting real choice and quality for all customers, nurturing innovation and fostering network investment.
These ambitious, yet indispensable goals can only be achieved in the context of an approach based on future-proof principles, which should be applied consistently across the European Union.
Overly prescriptive or intrusive rules would risk degrading today's Internet experience and limiting its development potential. Policymakers should favour a forward-looking approach, recognizing that the evolution of the Internet is an ongoing process.
Choice and quality in Internet access services
The offer of the e-communications industry is driven by the diverse requirements of customers. To meet this diversified demand, operators are required to provide a wide variety of Internet access products and services in the interest of end-users.
In this context, it is not technologically efficient or beneficial for consumers if all traffic is treated equally. Nor has this ever been the case.
Today's Internet, its quality, its reliability and its safety are underpinned by traffic management and by the network routing technologies embedded in the Internet's infrastructure.
Rules limiting the ability to provide consumers with a satisfactory user experience would alter and degrade the Internet as we know it today.
Innovation in the digital economy
Innovation is essential, whether related to new products or new business models. Digitization of formerly analogue industries - from mobility and health to manufacturing - is contributing to a fully connected Digital Single Market. To keep up with global competition and with customer demand, EU operators must be able to launch ground-breaking innovations and provide services to enable internet-content providers and traditional industries alike. The development in areas such as connected cars or entertainment, for example, depends on the possibility of providing specialized services at guaranteed levels of quality.
Limiting the provision of services that benefit from assured quality via detailed legal wording would impede EU operators to deliver today's innovative services and develop tomorrow's new services.
Price differentiation and consumer welfare
Any proposed rules should avoid introducing a regulation of retail offers in the highly competitive European telecom markets. In particular, a principle that bans positive price differentiation would deprive consumers of attractive services that they are using today and may act as a deterrent to innovation for new services and business models.
The ability to provide such innovative offers should be guaranteed across the EU as a whole: divergent rules at national level should be avoided, especially in light of the political ambition for a single mobile market for data.
Broadband investment and Open Internet rules
The new European Commission aims at identifying and removing the existing regulatory barriers to investment. It would be paradoxical to create new barriers to network investment and broadband capacity creation via ill-thought-out rules. We should all work to restore the conditions for speeding up broadband deployment and contribute to the achievement of a thriving European digital ecosystem.
The contributors to this joint statement are:
Cable Europe (www.cable-europe.eu), the European Cable Communications Association, is based in Brussels and groups all the leading European cable TV operators and their national trade associations throughout Europe. The aim of Cable Europe is to promote and defend the industry's policies and business interests at European and international level. The European cable TV industry provides digital TV, broadband Internet and telephony services to more than 73 million customers.
ETNO (the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association www.etno.eu) represents Europe's telecommunications network operators and is the principal policy group for European e-communications network operators. ETNO's primary purpose is to promote a positive policy environment allowing the EU telecommunications sector to deliver best quality services to consumers and businesses. ETNO members account for 60% of the total investments in European networks. You can follow @ETNOAssociation on Twitter.
The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting nearly 800 operators with more than 250 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and Internet companies, as well as organisations in adjacent industry sectors. The GSMA also produces industry-leading events such as Mobile World Congress, Mobile World Congress Shanghai and the Mobile 360 Series conferences. For more information, please visit the GSMA corporate website at www.gsma.com. Follow the GSMA on Twitter: @GSMA.
Make The NetWork is an EU initiative developed by leading telecommunications industry players, including cable companies, fixed and mobile operators and equipment manufacturers to contribute to the development of the wider European economy. Make The NetWork advocates a healthy, thriving digital economy as crucial to social and economic progress in Europe. For more information, visit the website at www.makethenetwork.eu. Twitter: @MTNWEurope
For more information on this statement you can contact:
Caroline van Weede, Director, Cable Europe, caroline.vanweede@cable-europe.eu
Alessandro Gropelli, Head of Communications & Media, ETN
