One of the benefits of summertime is the opportunity to catch up on reading.
On Tuesday, I spoke of the FTC’s recent paper on Net Neutrality. One of my regular blog readers pointed me to an OECD overview of Internet Traffic Prioritisation that was prepared a year ago but only released to the public in April.
The OECD report identifies the following points in its executive summary:
A market-based solution is preferable to intervention in the market as a way to deal with issues regarding traffic prioritisation. However, it may be helpful for governments to publish a set of general principles for market participants. If problems occur, ex-post remedies can be used. The decision to apply ex-ante regulation will depend on whether regulators find evidence of persistent problems in the context of traffic prioritisation and if market forces or ex-post solutions are unable to sufficiently protect consumers. There is considerable debate about whether significant anti-competitive problems will appear in markets. There is little evidence of anti-competitive conduct to date and problems have typically been resolved quickly via market forces or through quick regulatory intervention in markets where they have appeared.
There are some recommended regulatory principles suggested by the OECD as steps that policy makers could take to reduce incentives for anti-competitive behaviour:
- Reducing entry barriers that inhibit entry in the broadband Internet access market.
- Re-examining existing competition laws to ensure they can address any abusive practices that could appear under a multi-tiered Internet structure.
- Ensuring that subscribers can switch operators easily.
- Improving disclosure to broadband consumers of how their broadband Internet service is affected by packet prioritisation.
The OECD paper suggests that it may be premature for governments to get involved in network-to-network traffic exchange, an issue raised in Canada by the Quebec ISPs. Further, many have expressed concern about neutral access for content providers which the paper suggests, along with the concerns of smaller, start-up firms, could be addressed through the pooling of demand for Internet access via a common ISP.
The paper seems to be another voice for a market forces approach for net neutrality.