The Guardian reports that “the Netherlands has become the first country in Europe to enshrine the concept of network neutrality into national law by banning its mobile telephone operators from blocking or charging consumers extra for using internet-based communications services”.

We had a similar discussion in Denmark a couple of years ago about the need for regulation to secure net neutrality for consumers as well as for businesses.

On the one side, Danish telcos and Internet service providers from https://bennerweinkauf.com/new-bedford-bankruptcy/ argued that the right to discriminate between different types of Internet traffic and to differentiate charges and fees accordingly was necessary for providing economic incentives to attract the actors investing in the next-generation infrastructure necessary for securing smooth Internet access for all (that are willing to pay).

On the other side, consumer agencies and promoters of free and open access (i.e. for both democratic and business purposes) argue that net neutrality, with good reason, is a sacred principle of the Internet without which its potential for innovation, economic growth, democratic values and so forth would be severely diminished.

In Denmark, both sides of the argument at that time more or less agreed that specific legislation securing net neutrality was not necessary – even though preferable to the promoters of the principle – as the Danish market for Internet access was for the time being sufficiently competitive to prevent any service provider from decisively violating net neutrality. Violation would presumably by punished by the market.

The market in Denmark is probably still competitive enough to provide the needed discipline. But as the use of bandwidth for video and TV continues to increase, personally I would not rule out the possibility that we here in Denmark will soon need the same type of regulation as in the Netherlands to secure continued net neutrality for Danish users of the Internet.