In anticipation of network capacity issues, the European Commission and the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) announced several initiatives to provide some flexibility to network operators in how they manage congestion.
Specifically, the directive provides certain temporary exceptions to the EU’s Open Internet Access provisions of Regulation (2015/2120), which prohibits operators from blocking, slowing down or prioritising traffic.
“Pursuant to the Regulation, operators are authorised to apply exceptional traffic management measures, inter alia, to prevent impending network congestion and to mitigate the effects
of exceptional or temporary network congestion, always under the condition that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally. This could become relevant, following the confinement
measures taken to address the Covid-19 crisis. Operators can avail themselves of this exception, if such traffic management measures are necessary to solve or to prevent the congestion and they can only be maintained for as long as necessary.”
