Sneak preview for today's WG session
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Dear WG, few weeks ago I had a reason to look into regulators' practices regarding net neutrality and then found something that could be of interest to the RIPE community (again). First, a little bit of background: there is an EU regulation 2015/2120 <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32015R2120> that deals with 'net neutrality'. Then, there is BEREC <https://berec.europa.eu/>, the 'Body of European regulators for Electronic Communication', which is where the EU member states' telco regulators meet and coordinate. BEREC is where guidelines for dealing with 2015/2120 were written and it's also tasked with collecting the national regulators' reports and compiling these into a Report on the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 and BEREC Net Neutrality Guidelines <https://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/reports/9440-berec-report-on-the-implementation-of-regulation-eu-20152120-and-berec-net-neutrality-guidelines> Find all this and more at <https://berec.europa.eu/eng/open_internet/>. (The WG had dealt with the regulation and guidelines in mid 2016 already.) The most recent report says: 11 NRAs stated that they also undertook some other actions [...] creation of an IPv6 task force to accelerate the transition to IPv6 by enabling participants (ISPs, hosting companies, businesses, public sector players, etc.) to tackle specific problems and share best practices; and FI: The NRA has obliged operators to inform consumers about their right to a public IPv4 address in its memorandum about the Regulation. There's a number of other NRAs dealing with the (in)availability of public IPv4 addresses for end customers: Austrian regulator states that 'IPv6 penetration across the whole Internet currently at approx. 25%'; Slovenia reports: IPv4 address translation prevents traffic originating on the internet towards the user, which could be an issue if the user wanted to use its mobile terminal as an access point for a bigger number of devices connected at their home Netherlands' regulator ACM states: 2.3 Exploring the transition to IPv6 in the Netherlands BEREC has shown interest in making the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, a new standard for the use of IP addresses. The number of available IPv4 addresses has been depleted, but the introduction of IPv6 could lead to new problems. It appears there are differences between countries in how diligently the market and government organizations are currently dealing with the transition to IPv6. BEREC wishes to assess whether or not the roll-out of IPv6 (or the delay thereof) could lead to net neutrality issues. The French report has extensive coverage of IPv6. While 'net neutrality' is only one angle, it might be instrumental to note what issues get the attention of regulators and what the rationale is. See you at 14:00 CET in meetecho! -Peter
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On 28 Oct 2020, at 00:38, Peter Koch <pk@ISOC.DE> wrote:
The French report has extensive coverage of IPv6.
While 'net neutrality' is only one angle, it might be instrumental to note what issues get the attention of regulators and what the rationale is.
Thanks for the extensive background information Peter. Just to pick out the mention of the French report, we have been working with ARCEP quite extensively in the past, also in relation to depletion of the IPv4 pool, which became a recurring topic in ARCEP's social media engagement. We have also been involved in the establishment of their IPv6 task force, contributing with information, statistics and experience from similar initiatives. In case it was missed, ARCEP also asked me to contribute to their annual report, with an article that got published in volume 3 "The State of the Internet in France". The article describes the IPv4 market and some statistics as we had them on transfers in France at the time. https://www.arcep.fr/uploads/tx_gspublication/rapport-etat-internet_edition-... <https://www.arcep.fr/uploads/tx_gspublication/rapport-etat-internet_edition-2020_250620.pdf> Also for transparency, BEREC invited us and a number of other stakeholders to participate and present in a session of the Open Internet Group. In this session I provided an overview of the IPv6 adoption in Europe, together with some of the barriers we still observe, like the struggle to create a positive business case and the dependencies that exist in the value-chain. Part of this presentation also addressed the secondary market in IPv4 as the industry's (costly) alternative. Regarding the topic of your email, it is not the first time net neutrality has been flagged in the context of IPv6. And I'm happy to provide some more information and our perspective, based on the conversations we have had with the various NRAs and policymakers, about the need and usefulness of regulatory measures. Talk to you this afternoon, Marco Hogewoning Manager Public Policy and Internet Governance RIPE NCC
participants (2)
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Marco Hogewoning
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Peter Koch