Thursday, January 2, 2014

[Netherlands] T-Mobile Free Wi-Fi on Trains may Block YouTube


Here is how the "reasonable traffic management" exception to Net Neutrality looks like in real life.

While the Netherlands has a Net Neutrality law (see "Netherlands: Net Neutrality/DPI Restrictions Law Approved" - here), its railway service is allowed to block certain traffic on its free Wi-Fi service (operated by T-Mobile). I assume that if you still wish to watch YouTube you'll need to use paid mobile service.

24 Oranges reports that "The Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets has approved Dutch railways’ move to block YouTube and Spotify which use a lot of bandwidth in order to provide better quality Wi-Fi in some of their trains. Even though the Wi-Fi is free, the net neutrality law force ISPs and telecom operators to ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network".

ACM explains (here, in Dutch) that "traffic that congest the netwrok is an exception to the Net Neutrality law"

See "Dutch railways leans on net neutrality law to block sites" - here.

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