Dutch House of Representatives Vote for Net Neutrality Law

The Dutch House of Representatives approved a tough net neutrality bill that will become law. It will prevent mobile phone operators to charge extra for using services such as Skype and WhatsApp. Operators are also forbidden to block or slow down traffic of such services.

Telecom companies KPN (AMS:KPN), Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD), and T-Mobile (ETR:DTE) lobbied against the bill. Vodafone stated that the law will "lead to a large increase in prices for mobile internet for a large group of consumers". KPN said that it regretted "that parliament didn't take more time for this legislation".

Chile is the only other country in the world to have passed a net neutrality law; theirs came into force in May this year.

The Bill (translated into English) forbids communications providers from hindering or delaying any services or applications on the internet, except where doing so is necessary to stop congestion or block spam, or to otherwise maintain the integrity and security of the network.

The law would also force operators to provide a minimum level of quality for their internet services. They are, however, allowed to offer different tiers of bandwidth at varying prices.

The Dutch House of Representatives passed two more laws: one law would stop operators from employing deep-packet inspection (DPI) techniques; the other forbids the disconnection of internet users for any reason other than fraud or failure to pay their bills.

(Image courtesy of Kurt Griffith ©2004 KG/FRE)