Telecom networks in Europe are coping well with the increased traffic since the coronavirus pandemic struck the region, the Body of the European Regulators of Electronic Communications (Berec) and the European Commission announced in a joint statement. The national telecom regulators that make up Berec are stepping up their information sharing in order to monitor the situation and be ready to respond to any bottlenecks on telecom networks.
Berec noted that the EU's Open Internet regulation does not prevent operators from applying exceptional traffic management measures to prevent network congestion and to mitigate any negative effects of exceptional peaks in traffic. The only condition in the net neutrality regulation is that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally.
Traffic management may become more necessary following the confinement measures taken to address the Covid-19 crisis by the EU states, the statement noted. Berec did not go so far to relax some of the net neutrality rules, as called for by Vodafone. The operator said the ban on zero-rating certain apps or services after a customer uses up his data bundle should be lifted temporarily.
Berec regulators voted on the joint statement, and their Chair Dan Sjoblom emphasized: "We are currently not seeing any major congestion problems and network operators seem to be coping well with the higher traffic load in the networks. But we nevertheless need to stay vigilant and be ready for if the situation changes. This is an extreme and unprecedented situation we are witnessing and we have seen over the past couple of days just how quickly things can change."
To ensure regular monitoring of the internet traffic situation, the European Commission, Berec and national regulators are setting up a reporting mechanism. How this will work in practice will be announced in a future communication.
Berec said the system should be in place soon, as rather than building a completely new monitoring structure, it would strengthen existing mechanisms for information sharing among national regulatory authorities. Operators are invited to inform national authorities on any measures taken, to ensure transparency for individuals and businesses.
