Classroom Companion: Business

21.1 · Basic Net Neutrality

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3. Level playing field: Consumers and innovators have a right to a level playing 
field. No central authority, public or private, should have the power to pick win-
ners and losers on the Internet.
4. Network management: Broadband providers need meaningful flexibility to 
manage their networks to deal with congestion, security, and other issues.
5. Mobile: The principle of Internet openness applies to mobile broadband.
6. Vigilance: Promptly enforcing the rules to be adopted and vigilance in monitor-
ing developments in areas such as mobile and the market for specialized ser-
vices, which may affect Internet openness.
In the EU, net neutrality is laid down by article 3 of EU regulation 2015/2120: 
safeguarding of open Internet access (Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 of the Euro-
pean Parliament and of  the Council, 
2015
). This regulation is a part of the 
union’s Digital Single Market policy and was announced in 2015. The law 
broadly ensures net neutrality in the EU/EEA zones. However, countries within 
the union may specify stricter net neutrality rules than those in the EU regula-
tion. This is done in the Netherlands and in Slovenia. The EU regulation on net 
neutrality has been criticized for being vague and open up for prioritization of 
“specialized services” such as remote surgery and driverless cars. Such prioritiza-
tion is in violation of the principles of net neutrality as differentiated treatment 
of data packets in the network is needed to improve the quality and precision of 
such services. Another criticism of the EU regulation is that it opens up for zero-
rated applications.
China, on the other hand, has not enforced net neutrality. On the contrary, 
China blocks or restricts certain services, for instance, Facebook, within China for 
political reasons.
Mobile systems represent a particular problem concerning net neutrality as 
explained next.