The future of the electronic communications sector and its infrastructure

On the 23th of February 2023 the European Commission invited actors to comment on the exploratory consultation of “The future of the electronic communications sector and its infrastructure”.

Netnod hereby give comment summarised by these key points:
- The commission tries to fix something that is not broken.
Netnod suggests that any regulatory action should have sound empirical backing.
- The commission suggests an ex-ante normative regulatory design.
Netnod suggests that all regulatory design concerning digitization needs to be of ex-post character.
- The commission tries to vertically integrate network and traffic.
Netnod believes this fundamentally goes against the design of the Internet.
- The commission goes against the recommendation of BEREC.
Netnod believes the commission side-steps the purpose of BEREC.

Overall, Netnod is negative towards the suggestion that a metric should be developed based on which content providers should reimburse network operators. See the full response and appendix for further elaboration and discussion.