Danish Government’s response to the Commission's public consulta-

tion on specific aspects of transparency, traffic management and

switching in an Open Internet

The Danish Government welcomes the Commission’s consultation onspecific aspects of transparency, traffic management and switching in anOpen Internet.The Danish Government also welcomes the Commission’s continuedfocus on issues related to net neutrality in order to ensure an open andneutral internet. An open and neutral internet is essential for the ongoingdigitalisation of the public sector as well as the continued investment inand innovation of online services. This is necessary to ensure effectiveoperations of both the public and private sectors in an increasingly digi-talised world.The Danish Government stresses the importance of a common Europeanapproach on net neutrality and therefore welcomes the initiatives under-taken by the Commission and BEREC on specific issues regarding netneutrality. The Danish Government supports the Commission’s generalposition that effective competition and a sufficiently high level of trans-parency for end-users should be able to solve problems arising on netneutrality. Regulatory intervention in competitive markets is inappropri-ate unless it is the only way to solve possible net neutrality problems.Regarding the traffic management issues the Danish Government stressesthe importance of ensuring end-users’ ability to access and distribute in-formation or run applications and services of their choice, without net-work operators prioritising this access. In general, data traffic should betreated equally, but the Danish Government recognises that there may becases where traffic management is necessary, e.g. to maintain the integ-rity and security of the Internet. Such prioritisation of data traffic shallnot entail censorship or other similar limitations in freedom of expres-sion.Regarding transparency and switching issues the Danish Governmentstresses that the provision of relevant and significant information to end-users is important for the functioning of an effective market for Internetaccess. It is self evident that information on the possible use (and

limitations hereof) of an Internet connection in many cases is bothrelevant and significant for end-users. A high level of transparency istherefore a prerequisite for an effective market.The possible use of an Internet connection is a function of both technicalcharacteristics such as down-/upload speed, latency/networkresponsiveness, network management policies as well as commercialrestrictions for example on certain use or the use of specific applications(e.g. IP-telephony).In relation to transparency it would therefore seem out of place todistinguish between restrictions relating to technical or networkmanagement issues and restrictions relating to commercial decisions bythe Internet Service Provider (ISP) in question. The actual or potentialeffect or restrictions on the end user’s utilisation of his or her Internetconnection should be the guiding principle in determining whetherinformation concerning the restrictions is relevant and significant to theend-user.To have the most profound effect on end-user behaviour relevantinformation should be available and easily accessible before theconclusion of a contract. If changes to the detriment of the end-user aremade during the contractual period, the end-user should be made awareof these and in the case of significant detrimental changes, have theopportunity to cancel the contract without any penalty being incurred.An insufficiant level of transparency can often have the effect that theactual product or service in question does not meet the end-usersexpectations. The market for Internet access is not a simple market -“internet access” can be achieved with a wide array of technologies, withvarying technical characteristics, through a host of different ISP’s withdiffering network management policies etc. and is continuouslydeveloping. To completely match end-user expectations with the actualproduct or service in question might not therefore be possible.However, the use of the unqualified term “Internet access” can easily leadend-users to believe that a service is unrestricted or at least only restrictedin a very limited sense. It might thus improve transparency in this field ifthe unqualified term “Internet access” is used only to describe or marketlargely unrestricted services.Regarding the IP interconnection issues the Danish Government notesthat efficient IP interconnection arrangements are important for the opti-misation of networks, and thus, to achieve the best possible quality on theopen internet. Any problem that may have arisen between the mentionedmarket players has been solved through the commercial IP interconnec-tion arrangements.