Dear WG, few weeks ago I had a reason to look into regulators' practices regarding net neutrality and then found something that could be of interest to the RIPE community (again).
First, a little bit of background: there is an EU regulation 2015/2120 <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32015R2120> that deals with 'net neutrality'. Then, there is BEREC <https://berec.europa.eu/>, the 'Body of European regulators for Electronic Communication', which is where the EU member states' telco regulators meet and coordinate. BEREC is where guidelines for dealing with 2015/2120 were written and it's also tasked with collecting the national regulators' reports and compiling these into a Report on the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 and BEREC Net Neutrality Guidelines <https://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/reports/9440-berec-report-on-the-implementation-of-regulation-eu-20152120-and-berec-net-neutrality-guidelines> Find all this and more at <https://berec.europa.eu/eng/open_internet/>. (The WG had dealt with the regulation and guidelines in mid 2016 already.) The most recent report says: 11 NRAs stated that they also undertook some other actions [...] creation of an IPv6 task force to accelerate the transition to IPv6 by enabling participants (ISPs, hosting companies, businesses, public sector players, etc.) to tackle specific problems and share best practices; and FI: The NRA has obliged operators to inform consumers about their right to a public IPv4 address in its memorandum about the Regulation. There's a number of other NRAs dealing with the (in)availability of public IPv4 addresses for end customers: Austrian regulator states that 'IPv6 penetration across the whole Internet currently at approx. 25%'; Slovenia reports: IPv4 address translation prevents traffic originating on the internet towards the user, which could be an issue if the user wanted to use its mobile terminal as an access point for a bigger number of devices connected at their home Netherlands' regulator ACM states: 2.3 Exploring the transition to IPv6 in the Netherlands BEREC has shown interest in making the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, a new standard for the use of IP addresses. The number of available IPv4 addresses has been depleted, but the introduction of IPv6 could lead to new problems. It appears there are differences between countries in how diligently the market and government organizations are currently dealing with the transition to IPv6. BEREC wishes to assess whether or not the roll-out of IPv6 (or the delay thereof) could lead to net neutrality issues. The French report has extensive coverage of IPv6. While 'net neutrality' is only one angle, it might be instrumental to note what issues get the attention of regulators and what the rationale is. See you at 14:00 CET in meetecho! -Peter
