Net neutrality to be evicted from UK, but 'fair share' denied visa

It'll be hijinks and English sparkling wine (none of that nasty French stuff, thanks) in the offices of UK telcos this week after watchdogs gave up their European Union-era extremism about net neutrality, a badly defined concept whose main beneficiaries so far include bickering, cashed-up lawyers and people who like to wave placards about the end of the world – or, in this case, the end of the open Internet.

After much pleading by UK telcos, Ofcom, the national telecom regulator, has recommended an overhaul of today's legislation, effectively acknowledging that much of it makes zero sense. Net neutrality was originally supposed to prevent an operator from blocking or throttling a rival network application, like Internet telephony or another company's video streams. Then the fanatics arrived, and telcos became as nervous about their behavior as Catholics under Cromwell.

They worried, for instance, about the consequences of providing higher-speed or lower-latency services to customers prepared to pay a bit extra. Would this qualify as discriminatory treatment under rules handed down by the net-neutrality high priests of the European Commission? What about a "specialized service," reserving some bandwidth for a 5G-connected drone to ensure it wouldn't crash-land on someone's head? Authorities seemed more bothered about service prioritization than broken skulls.

Both those practices will be allowed if the government acts on Ofcom's latest advice. Telcos will also be able to do "zero-rating," which means not counting the use of a particular app – Spotify, for instance – against a customer's data allowance. Over in Europe, zero-rating deals between telcos and app developers have previously landed companies in court because of net neutrality legislation.

Traffic management measures will be acceptable, too. That essentially means an operator will be able to provision extra bandwidth for services that need it – steering resources toward video networks, for instance, on a day when England plays Brazil in the World Cup soccer final, and everyone is parked in front of a TV.

A thumbs-down for fair share

Telco celebrations would undoubtedly have been more raucous had not Ofcom given a big Nero-like thumbs-down to "fair share." If nonsense about the open Internet is extremism at one end of the scale, fair share is the opposite telco variety. The basic premise is that operators should be allowed to charge large Internet companies – the likes of Amazon and Netflix – because their video services gobble capacity and force telcos to spend more on network investment.

Forget that people would have little use for telcos and their high-speed connectivity offers were it not for those Amazon and Netflix services. Perhaps operators would be happier in a world of 2.5G and dial-up Internet where they only had to invest a few dollars a year to keep twentieth-century services running. But that wouldn't sound like a very exciting profile to the average investor.

Regardless, Ofcom has essentially decided that fair share is unnecessary if net neutrality is scrapped and operators are allowed to manage traffic in ways they previously could not. The two principles are, of course, as incompatible as Puritans and Jim Morrison-style hedonism, despite what some officials profess. But Ofcom couldn't resist having a pop at the cost arguments trotted out by fair share supporters. From a network perspective, the most traffic-sensitive costs are in the core and backhaul areas, it says, noting that access is "generally invariant to traffic."

Unfortunately, for the fair share crowd, core and backhaul account for only about 20% of total network costs and the percentage is expected to decrease in the next few years, according to Ofcom. Information it obtained from the telcos suggests core and backhaul expenses work out at just £60 (about US$73) a year per user.

It's different for mobile, concedes Ofcom, where the access network costs are also traffic-sensitive. The trouble is that nobody uses bandwidth-guzzling mobile data services unless they are absolutely desperate and Wi-Fi is unavailable. Picture a Lake District hiker who crests Scafell Pike and has a sudden urge to stream the latest Beckham documentary on Netflix. The big traffic peaks that BT moans about all happen on fixed networks. William Webb, the chief technology officer of a consulting group called Access Partnership, previously worked out that an average UK home of 2.2 inhabitants chomps through about 500 gigabytes of data a month, while the average mobile user nibbles just six.

A lot more is included in Ofcom's detailed report about this topic, but the regulator's broad conclusion on fair share is framed in its press release. "We have not seen sufficient evidence that this is needed, although this would require a change to the rules and therefore be a matter for government and parliament."

There is no telling what the elected morons who sleepily congregate in Westminster might do, but you would hope they pay attention to what seems like a rare common-sense approach in a mad world. Big Tech-loathing European Union officials have been publicly heard, wittering idiotically about fair share and how it does not require any changes to net neutrality laws. The US is prone to lurching from one system to another based on who sits in the White House.

Telcos quietly applaud

After knocking back some fizzy alcohol, UK telcos were able to issue coherent statements on the Ofcom update. Keen to avoid hailing the death of a principle still cherished by some, Vodafone UK's Maria Grazia Pecorari welcomed "the first steps in evolving net neutrality" and urged "action from the government." Drones have different connectivity needs from smart meters or smartphones, and yet existing rules have stopped Vodafone from offering "differentiated experiences based on requirements," said the operator's wholesale and strategy director.

BT's Howard Watson, seen earlier this week at Network X outpacing Omdia's James Crawshaw on a morning run in Paris, was similarly pleased with the "important clarity over regulations." Until now, it has been unclear if BT could develop a service that would prioritize "the relay of messages controlling the direction of a drone, to keep it flying safely," said BT's chief security and networks officer. After Ofcom's intervention, drone-filled skies could soon be a thing.

He wasn't entirely positive, though, saying further reforms are needed. And while there was no explicit reference to fair share in his statement, Watson did say, "the benefits and costs could be more evenly spread." If telcos cannot "negotiate on a level playing field with content providers, the challenges of meeting growing demand will remain reliant on telcos funding endless capacity upgrades." With both the incoming and outgoing CEOs of BT signing their names on European fair share petitions, this is probably to be expected.

Net neutrality fanatics are undoubtedly breathing fire and predicting the collapse of civilization and a return to the Dark Ages, when hairy and violent Germanic tribes had their heyday. The somewhat depressing reality is that legislative changes, however sensible, will probably make no big difference to the average telco's fortunes while eliminating a convenient scapegoat.