Phones, stop roaming from June 2017 but net neutrality is at risk – The Daily

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It’s official: the 15 June 2017 clicks prohibition of roaming rates in the use of mobile phones in ‘ EU . The end of the surcharge for calls, browse, download e-mail or connecting to Facebook and Twitter in Europe has, in fact, obtained from Strasbourg definitive yes on second reading . The details were already known since before the summer, but this approval is certainly good news for all the consumer that in 20 months will start to pay for phone calls and Internet with residential rates even when traveling to another European country. And if the EU Parliament in recent years, after exhausting battles, failed to eliminate roaming already in 2015 because of the resistance of Board where is the strong voice of the operators, since April 2016 it will be possible however begin to benefit from significant discounts: telephone operators will, in fact, forced to snipping already a bit ‘rates. So, roofs currently in force when going abroad (EUR 0.19 per minute for calls, EUR 0.06 per SMS sent and € 0.20 per megabyte of data downloaded) will be replaced by an extra cost maximum € 0.05 per minute for calls, text messages and 0.02 to 0.05 per megabyte for data . All excluding VAT.

“The abolition of surcharges for roaming – the rapporteur said Pilar del Castillo (EPP, ES) – has long been awaited by all: ordinary people, start-ups, SMEs and all types of organizations. ” An enthusiasm that contrasts with the words Dario Tamburrano MEP M5S and shadow rapporteur of the measure to the European Parliament. “Today – he said – I wanted to vote for the immediate and unconditional abolition of roaming charges, so make Europe a continent really connected . Unfortunately the ‘ agreement is phony because it assigns to abolition of roaming delayed and conditioning in which telephone companies can download the lost profits on the majority of citizens, including those who do not use it, do not know what is and never travel abroad, more and more in a continent in crisis. ” Of the same opinion that the Greens speak of consumers “scrubbed” .

And the risk that this package of reforms can backfire consumers also concerns the approval of the terms on net neutrality , literally net neutrality. The principle is quite simple: all traffic on the Internet should be treated the same way , without creating preferential lanes to make so that a content is uploaded faster than another, or that a provider can block or slow down access to certain sites or services online. For example, it means that access to the website of a start-up will not be slowed to favor larger companies or any service will be discriminated because it does not pay fees to the ISP . But, according to critics, the new rules have several limitations and blind spots and operators can actually make the Internet “two-speed” , with some services preferences (for speed and economic conditions) than others , and in fact distort the freedom of the network.

So if it is true, as the EU Commissioner for Economy and Society Digital Gunther Oettinger, “that with today’s vote, for the first time, Europe has rules protecting net neutrality “, the same critics are asking why the Parliament did not approve a amendment that clearly blocks any kind of loophole . The EU has, in fact, decided that access to the Internet is free, except for the “ specialist services ” (which also include healthcare applications) and innovative ones (eg Web TV), providing safeguards in defense of the operators who, in the case of abuse, will be able to recover the costs.

Then there is the case of the offers in “zero rating” Spotify or SkyGo , ie those promotions that allow you to access certain services without consuming shortly traffic expected in data package signed. The risk is that large companies will be able to offer high quality services at affordable prices , while small, with limited resources, can not even compete. Discrimination that could happen even with the introduction of classes of service , since operators can define which services are faster than others and tendancy. Finally, there is the issue of the “policy of traffic management “. Always managers, to prevent congestion, may decide to slow down certain services at any time. But no one will check if the problem is real.

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