British report on the importance of open internet

Recently, British consultancy company Plum issued a report named ‘The open internet  - platform for growth’ for the BBC, Blinkbox, Channel 4, Skype and Yahoo! The main focus lays on emphasizing the value and benefit of open internet and on how this can sustain innovation, value and investment along the internet value chain for content, application and service providers. Plum defines the term ‘open internet’ as the ability of end users to discover and access content or applications of their choice on the internet and the ability of content and application providers to access end users without permission from network operators. Plum does not wish to let the definition fall under het scope of ‘net neutrality’ as it recognizes that in some circumstances traffic management for legal or technical reasons is beneficial, provided the approach is not discriminatory.

Plum concludes that open internet is a platform for innovation and growth and describes the (commercial) benefits of open internet. However, according to Plum, certain myths obstruct the open internet, as a result of some access providers that claim the open internet model should be changed, because the growing demand for content and applications could become a problem. The network w ould get overloaded due to increasing traffic on the net. Plum states however, there is no reason to believe that a departure from the open internet model would be economically efficient, based on economic literature, the current value chain and efficiency and practicality of alternative models. Moreover, Plum finds deviating from this model would risk irreversible harm.

Furthermore, Plum concludes that the policy challenge of maintaining the open internet and promoting demand for advanced applications and networks is recognized, but has yet to be resolved. With respect to policy measures, Plum states that all stakeholders should be assured they can continue to innovate and invest without having to negotiate a maze of contracts and without fear of discrimination and/or foreclosure such as blocking of applications. Furthermore, measures to build greater confidence in the open internet are required to preserve existing benefits and support further innovation and investment. Proposed measures to support the open internet are, in short:

-    Giving a clear signal of commitment to the open internet by EU institutions, national governments and regulators.

-    Clearly defining internet access and restricting the use of the term in marketing to those who provide open access to the internet.

-    Promoting the application of an industry code of conduct and dispute resolution procedures, through self- regulation with oversight form a national regulator (such as Ofcom).

-    Closely monitoring market developments by policy-makers and national supervisory authorities.

You can read the report here.