Andrea Renda ETNO/Mlex summit, 25 June 2014 Neutrality in the “flat internet”

Peter Steiner. The New Yorker, July 5, 1993

W HY DID WE WANT NEUTRALITY IN THE FIRST PLACE ?  Too many explanations? Non-discrimination Non-discrimination by ISPs No charging for access (low entry barriers) Competition across/within layers Innovation at higher layers User choice User anonymity Freedom of expression/Pluralism Content and application providers End users

T HE N ET NEUTRALITY SPECTRUM  Over the past 5 years, several countries have taken action on net neutrality  All of them imposed transparency, but there is wide divergence on “reasonable” traffic management  Is this divergence plausible given the global nature of Cyberspace? 4 Mandatory NN Net diversity (just transparency) NLNL FRFREuroparlEuroparl USUS CanadaCanada EC/BERECEC/BEREC UKUK ???

F IVE MYTHS... 1.The net is neutral 2.Users always want a neutral Internet 3.Neutrality always helps start-ups 4.With diversity, QoS fees would be positive and supra-competitive 5.With diversity, market power would necessarily accumulate in the hands of ISPs

T HE I NTERNET IS BECOMING FLATTER (1)

T HE I NTERNET IS BECOMING FLATTER (2)  “Platformization” (Clarke and Claffy 2013) Rather low entry barriers Prevalence of open models Revenue sharing models (possible competition issues)  “Flat Internet”: an emerging market for QoS A juxtaposition of infrastructures Various types of CDN business models Do they compete with potential QoS offers by ISPs?

T HE I NTERNET IS BECOMING FLATTER (3) Source: Palacin et al. (2013)

T HE I NTERNET IS BECOMING FLATTER (4) Source: Palacin et al. (2013)

T HE I NTERNET IS BECOMING FLATTER (5)  Emerging CDN strategies Example: Level3 Example: Akamai Source: Palacin et al. (2013)

T HE INTERNET IS BECOMING FLATTER (6)  “Platformization” of traffic delivery: impact on entry barriers? No level playing field? Large content providers commonly use CDNs in the distribution of their content while long tail content providers tend to use traditional hosting solutions Hyper-giants tend to follow a two-sided market strategy: bloggers and newly born content providers can use existing free services such as Google Sites, App engine or Amazon Web Services Centripetal force, again?

Should we protect neutrality, competition, or rather the end-to- end nature of the (public) Internet?

C ONNECTED CONTINENT : FIVE SYNDROMES  “First legislate, then think”  “Galileo syndrome”  “Trabant syndrome”  “Keys and lamp post” syndrome  “Stockholm syndrome” 13

Peter Steiner. The New Yorker, July 5, 1993

15 Copyright – 1997 The School of Journalism and mass Communications, University of North Carolina

W HY DO WE WANT NEUTRALITY TODAY ?  What would the current approach achieve? Non-discrimination Non-discrimination by ISPs No charging for access (low entry barriers) Competition across/within layers Innovation ay higher layers User choice User anonymity Freedom of expression/Pluralism

DIFFICULT QUESTIONS Advantages of pro-neutrality regulation Easier to enforce? Suitable if the EU aims at regulating only the more stable layers of the ever-changing internet architecture Disadvantages What (or whose) problem does it solve? Need to do something on infrastructure deployment Are we eliminating players from a broader market? Uncertainties on neutrality at higher layers (e.g. Google) Way beyond “antitrust-oriented regulation” Harming existing platforms?

Tough competition stories... 18

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS Need for a thorough reflection on the meaning of neutrality and a future-proof, non-rhetorical approach to this concept Debate should perhaps shift towards protecting the original E2E design of the Internet Strong need for an incentive-oriented, architecturally savvy approach to e-communications policy Strong need for clarity in e-antitrust (the practice of market tests and settlements not suitable) 19

Andrea Renda ETNO/Mlex summit, 25 June 2014 Neutrality in the “flat internet” THANK YOU!!