Either Mr. Harbour is deliberately attempting to mislead or does not comprehend the impact and consequences of his amendments. This is astonishing in light of the fact that Mr. Harbour is a native English speaker and has inserted words like “limitations” and “conditions” into his amendments.

“On the question of network neutrality, so called, which I think has been vastly over-inflated in all of this debate, the Commission has quite rightly identified the fact that there is a potential – a potential – for operators to use differing quality of service provision in a discriminatory way, for example, by giving a higher capacity or better service quality to their own services as opposed to those of competitors. The commission made a proposal, the council amended that and we agreed.

But the fact remains that any other service limitations which are anti-competitive, and they could certainly include restrictions on access to competitive services like voice over IP, have and can be dealt with by the regulators under the existing framework of competition and access regulation. And that is clear. But what is fundamental is that customer needs to know if there are service limitations and customers may wish to buy a package with service limitations if it is cheaper…There is nothing illegal about service limitations, provided they are not anti-competitive… ”

http://www.mpo.cz/dokument58764.html ; timing 02:02:26 – 02:04:49

Network neutrality is not a over inflated question, it is the base of the Internet. It is the question. One thing is differentiating quality, as speed or bandwidth and a different one, giving limited access.

Once again it is Mr. Harbour who is attempting to equate restrictions to limitations; he admits that some restrictions, as long they are not anti-competitive, are acceptable. He admits that restricting access to a Voice-over-IP service could be anti-competitive, but restricting access to other services or applications is not a problem, possibly because there is no provision for a regulator to deal with it. Having a service limited package means having your right to receive information is limited, and it is a restriction to your freedom of expression. However, when a limitation or restriction goes against freedom of expression, telecommunications regulators have no power to do anything.

The legislative process leading up to the “compromise” amendments has been about artificially creating a difference between limitations and restrictions, and all that process has been obfuscated by Mr. Harbour’s explanations. Essentially, restrictions on access may mean 3-strikes and can only be imposed by a judge. Limitations are a restriction imposed from the beginning, decided not by a judge but by the access provider (maybe with help with some sectors with a vested interest in the provision of “lawful content”).

Who talked about copyright enforcement? Why does he refer to copyright enforcement when he is asked about last talks between MEPs and Ministers? This statement clearly is in contrast with efforts by the French government to legitimise in the EU the Hadopi laws, commonly known as “3 strikes and you’re out”.

Without Net Neutrality, we would not even have the World Wide Web, not to talk about even more advanced technical features like distributed boards and p2p technology. It’s Net Neutrality which allows bloggers, anywhere in the world, to compete on an even playing field without any editorial impositions. Net Neutrality grants freedom of information and freedom of speech and allows start-ups to play on an even playing field with giant media companies. Net Neutrality does not mean that providers are obliged to give users the highest QoS and bandwidth regardless of price. It simply means that providers must guarantee end-to-end connectivity regardless of price.

The vision of the network explained by Mr. Harbour with the “bookshop analogy” is not a known vision or analogy for the Internet, it is a series of networks which are interconnected, except for very basic services. The Internet is the network of networks.