Government does not plan to legally protect network neutrality

The other day it became known that the government is not going to introduce legislative measures to protect network neutrality. According to officials, the ban on speeding up or slowing down access to various services and sites is not required, as reported by Vedomosti. However, according to the representative of the Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov, in some cases the mechanisms for examining the most striking manifestations of discrimination of market participants are working.

It is worth recalling that in early August, the Council on the Development of the Digital Economy under the Council of the Federation recommended that the government prepare proposals on legislatively securing the principle of network neutrality. According to Lyudmila Bokova, a member of the Council of the Federation, additional legislative regulation of net neutrality in the Russian Federation is not required, since the anti-monopoly legislation allows solving such problems with the means already available.

That same August of this year, the so-called LTE Union, which includes MTS, VimpelCom, Megafon and Tele2, wrote to the government that operators should not be prohibited from speeding up or slowing down Internet access to various resources. According to representatives of the union, the principle of network neutrality completely contradicts the logic of the development of communication networks and new technologies. The authors of the letter argued that the development of fifth-generation cellular communications requires giving priority to such types of connection as unmanned vehicle control systems or telemedicine services.
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The issue of net neutrality at a joint meeting was considered by the Ministry of Communications, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and the “LTE Union”. In their opinion, the principles of free dissemination of information in Russia are already enshrined, in addition, there are all sorts of mechanisms to prevent unfair actions that are aimed at violating this principle.

The FAS, in turn, believe that the current legislation, which, among other things, prohibits unfair competition, agreements on the division of markets, actions dominating them, allows punishing for speeding up or slowing down access to some Internet services and sites. players that lead to restriction of competition.

Market representatives believe that speeding up or slowing down access to some Internet services and sites could help operators increase revenues - and that would be fair. Thus, the general director of Iskratelekom, Alkhas Mirzabekov, argues that operators are constantly spending resources on expanding network bandwidth — the problem is that video traffic, social networks and other resources are constantly growing. If in this situation telecommunications companies could establish a separate fee for user access to the most traffic-intensive resources and services, this would be quite logical. And if the subscriber does not like it, he can change his provider, since the competition in the telecommunications sector in the Russian Federation is very strong.

The vice-president of Rostelecom, Boris Glazkov, believes that a ban on speeding up or slowing down access to various Internet services and sites may have a negative impact on the telecommunications business. According to him, the situation in which telecom operators develop infrastructure, investing huge amounts of money in this development, and various Internet companies use it for free, is unfair.

Now operators offer tariffs that do not consider Internet traffic when working with social networks. If the principle of network neutrality is enshrined in law, such actions and models of work will simply become impossible.

Initially, the Council for the Development of a Network Economy proposed legislatively securing network neutrality. “When a company-operator discriminates another Russian company — a manufacturer of a service or content claimed by users, the interests of the latter end up in the end,” said a spokesman for the board.

On September 22, Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov instructed the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Economy and the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to consider the issue and submit agreed proposals for a meeting in the government. The report to the prime minister should be made before October 5.

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