UK Urges ISPs to Divulge Traffic-Shaping Policies

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UK telecommunications regulator Ofcom has shied away from enforcing network neutrality, but has urged service providers to be more transparent about their traffic shaping policies. There is also pressure for mobile service providers to stop discriminating against specific applications in order to enforce use of their own.

UK operators were relieved to hear that their existing traffic shaping practices will be allowed to continue, following a recent eForum in London called "Net Neutrality in the UK." This recognized the reality that without traffic shaping at peak times, the cost of broadband services would have to double, according to Hugo Harber, director of convergence and network strategy at Star, which provides managed broadband services in the UK to small and medium businesses. "We don't have network neutrality in the UK.," said Harber, who attended the UK eForum. "There is some application restriction and all the major networks such as BT and Virgin Media restrict [peer to peer] traffic at peak times, or else they'd have to upsize their networks. That's considered quite acceptable, and the response from Ofcom and from the Communications Consumer Panel was that this should be more transparent."


UK Urges ISPs to Divulge Traffic-Shaping Policies