Talk at 31st Chaos Communication Congress at Hamburg 2014. see: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2014/Fahrplan/events/6170.html Our talk will highlight the current debates surrounding net neutrality in Europe, the United States and other parts of the world. We will look at the results of the SaveTheInternet.eu campaign which was lunched a year ago on 30c3. We will discuss various legal protections for net neutrality, look closer at the experience of the Netherlands and we will give an overview of all important open ends of the debate. Since two years net neutrality is on the agenda of politicians world wide. These are important debates, as net neutrality became one of the central questions about our freedom on the internet. With different faces around the globe we see a trend towards more violations of the neutrality principle which the internet was founded upon. The efforts of telecommunication companies to find new ways to monetize their networks and us users within them are countered in some countries with legislation preventing this new business models. In 2010, after two years of preparation and a fierce battle, the Dutch parliament accepted a change to the Telecommunications Act which made net neutrality a principle that was protected by law. In this talk we will take stock after two years of legal protection of net neutrality in The Netherlands. Did it work and do the Dutch now have undiscriminated access to all services on the internet? Has the doomsday scenario of the providers, that subscriptions would become outrageously expensive, become reality? In which cases was the Dutch law enforced? Are there any loopholes in the Dutch implementation? If others are to fight for net neutrality, what are the pitfalls to avoid? And, on a more meta-level, is it enough? Will net neutrality protect your freedom to access websites and services, or do we need a broader type neutrality?

1. Net neutrality:
days of future past?
Thomas Lohninger | Initiative für Netzfreiheit
Rejo Zenger | Bits of Freedom

2. Thomas Lohninger Rejo Zenger

3. Remember
Ordinary citizens put net neutrality on
the political agenda before.
We need to do that again.

4. Remember
There are unsolved issues and civil
society needs your expertise.

5. “Net neutrality requires that the
internet be maintained as an open
platform, on which network providers
treat all content, applications and
services equally, without
discrimination.”
thisisnetneutrality.org

6. Three principles
●End to end
●Best effort
●Vertical intregration

10. “The [article] aims to maximise choice
and freedom of expression on the
internet for end users.”
explanatory memorandum Telecommunications Act

11. “End-users should be able to decide
what content they want to send and
receive [...]”
explanatory memorandum Telecommunications Act

12. “Providers of [internet access
services] do not hinder or slow down
applications and services on the
internet, unless [...]”
Telecommunications Act

13. “a) to minimize the effects of
congestion, whereby equal types of
traffic should be treated equally”
Telecommunications Act

14. “b) to preserve the integrity and
security of the network and service [...]
or the customer premises equipment”
Telecommunications Act

15. “Providers [...] do not make the price
[...] dependent on the services and
applications which are offered or used
[...].”
Telecommunications Act

16. So, how does that compare?

17. sources (mostly unofficial translation):
http://is.gd/lt9lS4 and Global Net Neutrality Coalition

18. Specialised Services

19. Managed Services

20. sources (mostly unofficial translation):
http://is.gd/lt9lS4 and Global Net Neutrality Coalition

22. .eu

24. Campaign facts
●40.374 faxes send (21.794 delivered)
●translated in 9 languages
●266 git commits from 12 contributors

25. Making the speeches talk

26. Vote in European
Parliament● Adopted with S&D, ALDE,
Greens and GUE
● We got real net neutrality!
● Text is still not perfect
● And enforcement is weak

29. source: edri.org, accessnow.org, netzpolitik.org and others

31. Summary
● Their goal: market consolidation
● We suck at the Council
● National fallbacks are necessary

32. The Dutch Experience [tm]

36. “[The NRA] believes that in this case
[...] blocking and delaying services that
require a large capacity, is necessary
to minimize the effects of congestion
on mobile connection.”
Dutch NRA to Dutch Railways and T-Mobile

38. “Vodafone will end this violation by
offering the Sizz-app as a seperate
service, which can be used
independent to the internet access
service.”
Dutch NRA to Vodafone and RTL

39. Open debates

48. Wikipedia Zero

49. Letter from Wikimedia to Chile

50. “Imagine a world in which every single
human being can freely share the sum
of all knowledge. That is our
commitment.”
Wikimedia Foundation Vision Statement

52. Remember
Ordinary citizens put net neutrality on
the political agenda before.
We need to do that again.

53. Support digital civil rights

54. Remember
There are unsolved issues and civil
society needs your expertise.

55. Day 3 | 17:00 | Noise Square
Net neutrality: what about
interconnect?

56. Now: question
everything.
Thomas Lohninger | thomas.lohninger@netzfreiheit.org
Rejo Zenger | rejo.zenger@bof.nl