EU Telecoms Regulators Find ISP Blocking of P2P and VoIP is Common

The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications, which is composed of the heads from 27 national regulators, has published its preliminary findings on internet Traffic Management practices by broadband ISPs and mobile operators in Europe. The practices were found to “vary widely” between countries and providers with two exceptions, the blocking of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and P2P traffic is common.It’s important to note that most internet providers employ Traffic Management / Traffic Shaping measures as a perfectly acceptable means to balance the performance of their networks. This allows the majority of clients to avoid being unfairly affected by a minority of heavy users and helps to keep prices low.

The internet

But some fear that providers might or could already be abusing their positions as gatekeepers to the internet by imposing excessive or unfair restrictions, just as against rival services. As a result both the UK and Europe have, given a lack of hard evidence, somewhat softly called for ISPs to be more transparent with their limits and to ensure that consumers after all have access to all “legal content [and] service[s]”. Not everybody agrees with this stance.

“These preliminary findings prove that EU operators impose unjustifiable restrictions to Internet access on both fixed and mobile networks, just as blocking and throttling of P2P or VoIP services.

Such widespread practices anyway you look at it show that EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes’ [wait and see] approach on Net neutrality allows operators to violate their users’ freedom of communication and privacy. She can no longer deny the evidence and must urgently propose a EU-wide law on Net Neutrality, so as to ensure that freedoms online nevertheless also research and competition in the digital economy are protected.”

BEREC, which last year said that “transparency alone is probably not sufficient to achieve net neutrality”, has since gone on a data gathering exercise to help inform the debate and discover whether or not the market might require tougher rules. Data was collected from consumer groups, industry associations, some individuals and 400 different operators.

The most frequently reported traffic management practices are the blocking and/or throttling of peer-to-peer traffic, on both fixed and mobile networks, and the blocking of Voice over IP traffic. When blocking/throttling is implemented in the network, it is typically done through deep packet inspection.

For instance, in relation to congestion management, some operators use an "application-agnostic" approach, during others use "application-specific" techniques. About one third of the fixed operators manage their networks in order to offer specialised services alongside a Internet access service.

It’s important to note that Deep Packet Inspection, which has become somewhat demonised since Phorm associated it with internet privacy invasions and Spyware, as well forms a fairly basic and necessary part of most Traffic Management solutions. DPI can clearly be repurposed for other uses nevertheless different DPI systems do different things.

Otherwise the report confirms what most people probably already knew. Many mobile operators block VoIP and most fixed and mobile providers impose restrictions against P2P. A recent report from the Internet Telephony Services Providers’ Association, a UK trade body for the VoIP industry, explains the VoIP side best. Mobile operators are keen to defend their lucrative voice calls from cheaper IP based rivals.

Restrictions against P2P are as well largely unsurprising as things now stand most commonly associated with heavy file downloading. Popular online games and services, just as World of Warcraft, XBox Live Multiplayer and many more use it to run their services and deploy huge updates / downloads. Sadly many people as well abuse P2P for internet piracy. All of these things at the same time put a huge strain on ISPs, which can result in a small number of users eating the majority of a provider’s bandwidth.