April 2010

Last week I participated in a meeting of the German Association of Telecommunications and Value-Added Service Providers (VATM), which got together to establish a net neutrality working group. The discussion pretty much reiterated the arguments that have been exchanged in the United States for quite some time now. So far this has not been a big topic in Germany or Europe outside of some expert and activist circles. To my knowledge, operators have pretty much ignored the net neutrality debate so far. And I am not entirely sure why that is — maybe because we are just lagging behind the US as in so many other cases, or because of a different attitude toward civil liberties. Either way, I certainly welcome a debate provided it involves all stakeholders: legislators, operators, civil rights activists and technology experts.