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For MIX Salon 2012 we have Marco Fiorentino, KPNQwest Italia CEO and we ask him:
Do you agree with the ETNO proposal to extend ITR to the Internet?
What consequences do you foresee whenever ETNO succeedes in the extension? What impact could this new set of rules have on the Internet as we know it today?
Thanks Mauro, I think the smartest thing to do at this moment is to remember what the European Parliament decided a few days ago after this proposal was made by ETNO.
The parliament adopted a resolution which asks the European regulator to adopt the appropriate measures to ensure, among other things the net neutrality,
the principle of the service end to end, the principle of the openness of the network and the possibility, I would add,
that any opinion and any service that is offered on the network runs in an absolutely transparent way.
This concept has already been passed in the US, FCC has already adopted it, it already passed in Holland,
and a few weeks ago Natalie Kroes discussed this topic.
Until now Natalie Kroes had a wait&see approach, that is to say, let's see if the current regulation is enough and if it is not we will intervene.
We, and I speak for the association of the Internet providers, believe that this situation is absolutely not sufficient and we think that we should adopt
the same regulations as the United States and Holland because some important violations of the net neutrality principle have already been verified.
On one hand the 4g services of the operators, including HD video contents, pass for free while on the other hand all the others must pay,
in Germany there are services in collaboration with operators offering online music where the mobile network is provided for free
and the end customer instead must pay to use the competitors services.
These things better not happen, and if they do they will have the effect of reducing the competition on the Over the Top services
and what will happen when you restrict the competition is very clear, we have seen it in the Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall:
there were Trabant on one side and Bmw and Ferrari on the other.
I think that the European Parliament has stated a principle that will ensure we do not get back to the Trabant and we will continue to have a system of open competition,
this is the way Internet was born and the way Internet created Google, Facebook, Skype, etc. until now.
I conclude by saying that until now Natalie Kroes has been a bit timid from this point of view,
we hope from now on she has the courage to face, with strength that entity that perhaps would prefer us to return to the Trabant age.